


The Last Death-Defying Screech of the Jersey Shore

by SadFic4SadBitch



Category: GOT7, K-pop, NCT (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: AU, Angst, Anxiety, Fluff, Humor, Implied Smut, Jersey Shore AU, Lots of Cursing, M/M, Mental Health Awareness, Mint yoongi, New Relationship, No seriously Hoseok is such a dickhead, Shitty people - Freeform, WARNING: mental distress, also khakis, also overuse of the word heinous but that's just me, but mostly BTS, extreme drivers, gotbangtan, major crossover because I'm multistan, making fun of new jersey, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadFic4SadBitch/pseuds/SadFic4SadBitch
Summary: When nursing home aid Kim Seokjin meets upstart DJ Min Yoongi at The Boardwalk, he knows with way too much certainty that the two are about to fall in love. Aided by his surrogate parents elderly Jikook, and possibly his shitty roommates Ten and Hoseok (one is better than the other), Jin sets out to live the role he was born to play.
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Kim Seokjin | Jin/Min Yoongi | Suga, Min Yoongi | Suga/Park Jinyoung (GOT7), Park Jinyoung - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for all my New Jersey trash babies. It's finished but I'm not sure how many chapters cause I didn't divide it yet!! It's my first time posting on here (not first time writing). Let me know what you think! (Also, please lmk if I've made a mess of tagging, etc.)

If I had a nickel for every time I saw a beautiful person on the boardwalk, I’d be even more broke than I am now. Jungkook tells me that the boards used to be full of gorgeous people back in the “good old days.” It might be less that times have changed and more that I repel babes. But most of what I charmingly and Hoseok snarkily refers to as the “Jin effect” is absolutely intended. The rest, well, I’m gonna optimistically put that down as a lack of other people’s imagination. 

All this to say that when I saw him, huddled over his phone in the shade from the Kohr Bros. stand, I had to do something. After I panicked. Briefly. Suavely. I waited in line for my ice cream, a Gram-worthy vanilla cone with jimmies. Then I stood there across the boards and leaned against the railing. The ice cream started to lean dangerously as I unbent my useless limbs and loped over towards the man. “You look like a gay vampire,” I offered him one of my signature pick-up lines. 

He looked up from his phone, squinting at me in the light from the sun. He was wearing ripped black jeans, a Hawaiian shirt, and a black baseball hat with those little edgy rings on the brim? Mint green hair poked out a bit from under the sides. His eyes had a mischievous glint as his mouth teetered on the edge of smile. “You’re one to talk,” he said. I rubbed a now sticky hand on my tattered Bermuda shorts. He flicked the edge of my straw hat. “I’m surprised you don’t have a smear of white sunscreen across your nose,” he teased. 

“Oh, I did, but it seeped into my skin hours ago.” He slipped his phone into his back pocket. “So, I hope it’s not too creepy and gross, but I was wondering why you’re hiding in the shade and frowning into your phone,” I blabbered. I knew I was blushing, or at least the tips of my ears, which were thankfully tucked securely under my hat, were red. I wondered why I let Jungkook lure me into the world of “being forward.” 

“I was wondering why you were creeping across the boards holding a melting ice cream,” he laughed. “But, as for me, I got stood up,” he shrugged. “I kinda hoped it was going to be something more than a Tinder hookup, and we’d been talking for a while, but…” He shrugged again. I held out my ice cream and tilted my head. He bit the side of his mouth before taking the ice cream. “This is only because I know that you didn’t lick it. Obviously,” he muttered, trying to quickly fix the mess I’d made, licking around the edges like a cat. 

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I asked. I wanted to say something out of a Hallmark movie, like oh, I’ll be your date, or do you want to fall in love for the afternoon? But I hadn’t even been on many dates and I wasn’t really sure what made a date a date. Most connections I made seemed romantic. I didn’t have a lot of people. 

He looked at me for another minute before nodding and peeling himself out of the shadows and brushing past me into the foot traffic. We were almost sideswiped by this couple who were absolutely, 100% from Bumblefuck, PA, but other than that we made it across onto the right side without a problem. “So,” he started. “I’m kinda guessing you’re not from around here…” he trailed off. His voice was rumbling like… like… “I work at the spots for twenty something NJ trash babies,” he continued. I guessed that he was always mildly amused. 

“Oh! Um, diner?” I guessed. 

“Uh-uh,” he said around the ice cream cone, alternating between looking at the ice cream and looking down the boards into the crowd of people. I watched his eyelashes, delicate in profile. His gaze flickered towards me and I looked away quickly, shoving my hands in my pockets, and he laughed. 

“Wawa?” I guessed again. 

“Oh, one hundred percent,” he laughed. “I pump gas, but nights I DJ.” 

“Yeah?” I asked excitedly. I didn’t really know the spots around here yet; I’d only been here for two months or so. “I could really use some new spots.” 

“I work at DAER,” he said. 

“And you still need to work the pumps at Wawa?” DAER topped all of the trip advisor lists for AC. Probably a 110% on Yelp or Rotten Tomatoes or whatever. I’d been there a couple of times with Hoseok and Ten, that much I remembered.

“Well, I only DJ part-time. Right now, I only get every Tuesday night and every other Thursday.” Yoongi stole a glance at me and asked, “So, was I right? Are you New in Town?” 

“Yeah, but not a visitor visitor,” I started. “I just moved here last month. I moved in with a friend of mine.” 

“Can I ask why the move? Not that this place can’t be beautiful. But it’s also very… re-tire-e?” he stretched the word out. 

“I work in a resident home. It is most certainly very re-tire-e,” I copied him. “But I got the job, and my friend needed a roommate, and it… okay, this’ll sound very lame, but my parents met here. And maybe my subconscious wanted that kind of romance.” 

“You believe in romance, huh?” he asked, a frown in his voice. He chomped down the rest of the cone and wiped his hands on the tail of his shirt. 

“I think it’s the only honest thing left in the world,” I said. I knew where he was going with this, or at least I thought I did. It was naïve, it was dumb, it was thinking too much or expecting too much of other people. “I know you just got stood up,” I started. 

“No, no,” he laughed. “I mean, I’m seriously okay with that. Whatever floats his boat,” the man shrugged again and laughed. 

“Then why did you lean in the shade for so long waiting?” His lips quirked towards a smile. I stopped and held out my hand. “I’m Jin.” 

He hesitated for only a second before taking my hand. “Yoongi,” he said. 

“Well, Yoongi, this looks like the beginning-” I started. 

He drew his hand away and pointed a finger at me, starting to laugh with a wide smile. “Hey! Do you speak entirely in movie quotes?” He was easy to smile, something I often found in the mirror but not in other people. But it seemed to me, in the few times that Yoongi met my eyes as we walked down the boards, that his eyes were smiling too. Every time. That they beat his lips to smiling. Sometimes my eyes forgot to smile. 

“Not entirely. Just mostly,” I explained. Someone muttered a vague “asshole” as they maneuvered a small stroller around us. “So, what’s your darkest secret?” I asked as we started to walk again. The air stuck to my face. 

“I can’t say the alphabet backwards,” he said without missing a beat. “My first kiss was during seven minutes to heaven when I was thirteen. I ate a spider once for five bucks.” 

I blinked once and raised an eyebrow. “You can’t do it when you sing?” 

“Sing it backwards? You’d better show me.” 

“I used to do it with my brother. It won’t be nearly as good,” I said. “My brother’s Daniel Kim.” 

Yoongi stopped for a minute as his hand unconsciously raised by his side in a subtle woah there cowboy back the fuck up gesture. “Bullshit. There’s no way.” 

“Yeah. I don’t know why I told you that,” I admitted. “I’m not trying to get clout or anything.” I’d known him for all of ten minutes and it was already starting. 

“500,000 Instagram followers Daniel Kim? Cover of Time magazine Daniel Kim?” After Yoongi had wiped the drool from his chin and closed his mouth, we started walking again. “I don’t usually act like that. Or care about stuff like that,” he started sheepishly, his eyes darting towards me and away again. 

“I mean, it’s cool if you do. You can be edgy and emo and still fanboy over celebrities.” 

“Wow, you’ve known me all of ten minutes and you already see me as a multifaceted human being. Who are you Jin Kim?” 

“And where have I been all your life?” I teased before I could bite my tongue. Would Jikook be proud? 

Yoongi rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. Now his ears were blushing. “So, what’s your deepest darkest secret?” he asked. 

“I started going grey when I was sixteen. This? Box dye. My roommate’s boyfriend does it.” 

“He’s a hairdresser?” 

“Nah. But he loves getting into other people’s business. He teaches yoga classes over in Avalon. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights. You want either his business card or his Tinder?” I chirped. 

Yoongi looked over at me and furrowed his brows. It wasn’t malicious, and it wasn’t even overly dissecting (trust me, I’ve been dissected by enough over paid overrated psychiatrists to feel the difference). It was… open. Was I in love yet? “You talk really fucking fast,” he nodded. 

“Oh… yeah,” I replied lamely. Maybe my subconscious wanted to even the score? Was I being Too Much? Trying to be too clever with the words and stuff? Hoseok told me all the time that he was just gonna lock me in the soundproofed room and let me talk myself unconscious. 

“No, I mean, it’s funny. You’re funny,” he emphasized before sighing. “Sorry. I’m trying to be nicer. Not that, I mean, not that I don’t think you’re funny,” his voice scurried. He gave a crooked smile that was part grimace. “Can we pretend I didn’t say anything?” he whined.

I tilted my head back and laughed. I wanted to loop my arm through his because it was summer and my knees were burning and the salt was playfully clinging in the creases in my clothes. But instead, I shoved my hands in my pockets as we continued to weave through the crowd. 

\- - - - - 

“Don’t EVEN talk to me about Hoseok,” Ten growled, zooming past a woman and a baby stroller who’d barely crossed the yellow lines.

“Why’s that again, bud?” I asked, clutching onto the Jesus handle with one hand and the armrest with the other. I wondered if my eyes could get any wider. Okay, scratch that. There was the time Ten got into an argument with Hoseok AND the two actors they’d met at the Starbucks that morning, and they’d somehow ended up having a massive foursome on the living room floor.  
I was invited, but regrettably declined. I’m ridiculously awful at hand-eye coordination and there seemed to be a lot of that going on.

“He’s a massive SLUT, in case you haven’t goddamn noticed,” Ten continued. The greasy takeout bags stained my shorts as Ten whipped his Prius around a corner. 

“Jerk-off!” Someone shouted with middle finger held aloft.

“Yeah well, fuck you!” Ten shouted back and slowed down. The man, wearing khakis and a polo with a bottle of white wine tucked under his arm, started walking towards us, swaggering in what he surely thought was menacing. 

Ten started to undo his seatbelt and I put a hand on his arm. “Dude. It’s never worth it. You remember that time I raced that chick in the F150 and then we stopped and made out?” I paused. 

“Well, that worked out. But khaki man is not your type.” I raised the bag in one hand and shrugged with my entire body. “Plus, the food’s gonna get cold.”

Ten sighed and flicked the car into drive. I watched the man fade into the bright concrete. “Don’t know why I’m listening to you. That food is shit.”

“You got tofu right?”

“Yeah, I got tofu but it’s gonna set me back about two-thousand calories anyway. It’s gonna clog your arteries. I know I mentioned it in passing at dinner last week, but you’re getting a little sluggish,” Ten continued. Yoongi had said that I talk fucking fast. Wonder what he’d think if he met Ten. Maybe he would - would he meet him? I wondered for the tenth time since we’d parted at the boards whether going to Yoongi’s show tonight was too much. “How do your partners feel about your performance lately?” Ten continued.

“Well, Ten, my hand is perfectly satisfied,” I replied.

“Hey, hey, don’t be bitter - what about that guy, uh, Jason? What happened to Jason, your Duck Donuts dream king?” 

I waved my hand. “He didn’t think video games had any spiritual benefit. So, he took his stuff and cleared out a couple weeks ago.”

“He had stuff at the house?” Ten asked, shooting me a sideways glance.

“Well, moved out of my HEART. Anyway, Ten, can I ask you something?” I continued.

“If this is about the dog thing –”

“No, no,” I waved him away. Hoseok wanted a dog, Ten wanted a cat, and I said we should just get both. I honestly wondered how Ten and Hoseok had stayed together for over a year. Not that I agreed with total compromise, but they should at least judge the decision of their very own neutral third party, moi. “I met someone. At the boardwalk.” Then again, I thought, Jikook fought all the time and they were still gushy af. 

“Is this like the last girl you met at the boardwalk? Because I’m pretty sure she didn’t exist, Jin.”

“It was a very passionate mutual hand job in the Morey’s Pier bathrooms. But that’s –”

“Jin, swear to God, if you painted your nails black, I’d know for sure you get off on giving women UTI’s.”

“ANYWAY- His name is Yoongi and he’s a petite Capricorn with a fake edgy exterior and a cinnamon roll smile,” I continued.

Ten smiled. “I’m happy for you, Jin.” The car crunched over the seashell lawn as we parked in front of the house. It was an itzy one story tucked in between new construction McMansions. There were blue aluminum roofs over the front windows, and a tiny deck perched on the roof. It’d been Hoseok’s parents’ until they followed that evolutionary New Jersey boomer instinct and fled to Florida. “What’s your question?” Ten turned in the seat towards me and cocked his head. 

“He works at DAER, and he’s DJing tonight, but would it be super creepy and super not sexy if I went?”  
He thought for a minute then scrunched his nose and stared at me. “Jin, you’re really bold and that’s disarming. I think you should keep doing what you feel is right.”

“I want to see him.”

“Then do it, asshole!” Ten laughed. “Need a wing man?” He teased. “Wait, wait, never mind, Hoseok will wanna come and I’m not letting him near your bae,” Ten said, looking over my shoulder where Hoseok had opened the door and stepped out onto the front stoop with crossed arms. He was, as usual, wearing big sunglasses, a loose 76ers tank top and cut off denim shorts. 

“Took you assholes long enough!” Hoseok shouted loud enough to be heard through the closed car windows. Ten leaned around me and gave his boyfriend a sarcastic slow wave. He turned towards me and pinched my chin with a wink. 

“Let’s go killer,” he said playfully before we climbed out of the car and cronched over the shells into the house. 

\- - - - - 

My plan was to sneak out of the house around eleven, but Hoseok has this fifteenth sense. It was more than eyes in the back of his head. Total mom mode all the time. If mom harassed the servers at the Longwood Diner where they were general manager and shot bad porn in their bedroom on their days off. Seriously, the man had absolutely zero artistic sense. 

“Jin! You going out tonight?” Hoseok called in an abrasive whisper shout as I tried and failed to sneak into him and Ten’s room to steal some lipstick. I could hear the glint in his eye. 

“Ah… no,” I finished lamely, walking through the small kitchen into the living room. They were switching the TV back and forth between Catfish and Big Brother. Ten’s legs were in Hoseok’s lap, his head squished against the back of the sofa and surrounded by a massive drool spot. I stood uncomfortably in front of him, trying to control the urge to shift my weight, pull on my shirttail. 

“You look good,” he nodded. 

“What’s the catch?” 

“You already owe my money, Seokjin. Do you want me to add five bucks for every compliment?” he pursed his lips. Hoseok hadn’t really changed much since we were ten. He spoke entirely in witty insults. He would look deep into your eyes, and it wasn’t an understanding and appreciation thing. He saw all your cracks and he figured it would be funny to see how many stomps it would take to make you crumble. 

He rarely got away with that now. I beat the shit out of him once we were fifteen. Worked like a charm. 

“Wait, hand me my purse,” Hoseok said, pointing over to the hooks behind the front door, opening and closing his hand in a grabbing motion. I handed the bright yellow bag to him. He fished around and pulled out a light pink lip gloss. “Come here.” He made the grabby motion again, this time referring unsurprisingly to me. 

I stepped closer and he grabbed my loose-fitting tie and yanked me down to his eyelevel. “Help a guy out, Seokjin,” he muttered as he dabbed the gloss on my lips. “There.” He pushed me away and I straightened my loose fitting sparkly pink dress shirt. I had on black jeans and black boots with a little heel. I felt like I was being pushed out of the nest. Or at least I did until Hoseok began to push Ten’s leg’s off of him and stood. “Just let me put on a shirt, m’kay?” 

“Come again?” 

“Hoseok, sit the fuck down,” Ten mumbled into the couch, weakly flinging his arm in our direction. 

“I’m the life of the party, Seokjin,” Hoseok said with wide eyes. 

“You’re the life of the party? Have you ever done five Jell-O shots off of Greg’s grandfather in the bathroom of a fundraising gala for badger moles?” I asked with my eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know, who did do that?” Hoseok said, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“Who’s Greg?” Ten mumbled. 

“Never mind never mind. I’m gonna be late. Well. You know what I mean.” Lights flickered outside of the blinds. “My Uber’s here.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin makes a new friend. Things get awkward. More interestingly timed movie references.

I melted into the mass of people, fighting my way over towards the bar. I liked the feeling of the bass in my throat, and the sweat that had already broken out under my collar. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was anticipating a mint-haired boy with a gummy smile, or if my blood was telling me to jump into the crowd and forget myself for a few hours. Could be both. “Hey, uh, can I get… a margarita? But one of the blue ones please,” I said, leaning over to shout over the music into the bartender’s ear.

I turned around and squinted through the people. I’d always heard and, in my fifteen-minute after dinner research/ stalker session found out, that DAER had a row of couches and tables somewhere in the middle there. The ceiling was crisscrossed with dark blue and purple lights. “What are you thinking about?” A ridiculously pretty man shifted in his seat, flipping his head to try to clear the bangs of his blonde mullet from his eyes. 

“It reminds me of the sky. I lived out West for a while, and the colors in the sky there…” I trailed off. 

“Should I visit out there? I’ve always wanted to just pull up roots and go somewhere. Disappear. Poof,” he explained, motioning with his hands and almost knocking over his drink. I wanted to tell him running away wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. 

“Well, some things are overrated, of course. But sometimes cheesy shit is the best, right? Like Buffy. Or those fake sugar cookies from Shoprite.” 

“You seriously like those?” he laughed. He had a freckle on the edge of his nose. 

“Does anyone?” I laughed in return. 

“Tell me more,” he leaned forward eagerly. I caught his arm when he almost tumbled off the stool. The bartender set my drink on the bar. 

“Hey, thanks!” I called. 

“I came here with somebody,” he exclaimed. “I was not going to get drunk. I only had three drinks, boy scouts…” he paused and blinked, scrambling to refocus his eyes. 

“It’s okay,” I said. I helped him back onto the stool. 

“What do you do?” he asked. “I’ve got two semesters left at Stockton. Then I’m outta this place.” 

“Hey, I mean that’s only natural you want to get out,” I shrugged. “I go to Stockton too, but I’m in the RN program.” 

He furrowed his brows and smacked his lips. “Yeah? I didn’t… do we have a nursing program?”

“It’s a certificate. I’ve been in the biz for a long time. Just tying up some loose ends. I work at a resident home right now,” I explained. I took my hand off of his velvet jacket and turned back to the room, sipping my drink. I squinted towards the stage, trying to make out Yoongi’s hair. I wondered if Yoongi made his own music. I’d tried, but I never seemed to have the right things to sing about. What was The Right Thing? Would falling in love or obsessing over a single person make me feel sure about something for once in my life? 

I was on crumbling ground. 

Maybe I should leave. “No, don’t do that!” the man next to me shouted and I flicked my eyes, and only my eyes, towards him. Very uncomfy. Then I noticed that he was shouting into his phone. Not on the phone, mind you. He was shouting at whoever he was texting with seeming distress. Mind your business, Jin. Mind your business…

“Are you good?” I asked with a slight smile. 

“My brother,” he lurched forward and blinked hard before continuing. “My brother wants to Facetime this guy he just met. He just met. I told him to play it cool, but oh no, he’d rather keep it real.” The man giggled. “This is a mess.”

My phone started buzzing. “No way,” I laughed incredulously. I turned the phone towards him. “Is Yoongi your brother?” Yoongi said I only quote movies, but I only quote movies because my life has been a movie, all the time. 

The man’s face broke out into a sweet smile. “Oh, he likes you. Don’t fuck with him, huh? Cause he may look all soft and cute, but he’s hiding a grouch.” 

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said, my fingers tingling from the drink I’d slurped quite fast. I wondered if my lips were blue. I answered his call. He was, sure enough, on the stage. 

“Hi!” he screamed. “I’m sorry if this is… wait. Where… are you here?” he shouted incredulously. 

“It was supposed to be a slightly disturbing surprise, but then you decided, in the words of your brother, to keep it real.” I made little air quotes. I tried to deadpan, but I could feel that my eyes were crinkling around the edges. 

“What? I can’t even hear you! This was a shitty idea! Come up here!” he screamed into the camera. I nodded enthusiastically and he hung up. What the fuck was I thinking? I’d only been onstage that one time at the Drake Bell concert me and Hoseok had crashed up in North Jersey. It was EPIC. But this was totally different. Was I gonna watch him DJ? It honestly sounded ridiculous, but I also think I’d be willing to do whatever made Yoongi happy. 

Were my lips really blue? 

We stumbled up the stairs in Yoongi’s apartment building. Yoongi’s brother - Taehyung - slung between us. “You said you’d be coming back again this way, babyyy,” Taehyung began to scream sing. Again.

“Alright, killer, you’ve sung that one six times in a row,” I laughed.

“At least he moved on from All Star,” Yoongi said.

“Yeah, well if he had any class, he’d at least stay true to the Shrek soundtrack,” I quipped before grunting as we dragged him up another step. 

“Sorry, the elevator’s out,” Yoongi murmured, peering around Taehyung. He gave me a hesitant closed lip smile. I grinned back. Of course, I grinned back. I tried not to concentrate on the way our forearms kept brushing together on Taehyung’s back. Then I decided who gives a shit if I’m giddy. It’s been a long time. Had it ever been like this? I tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the last year or two. 

Watching Yoongi DJ hadn’t been boring or awkward. I wasn’t sure if it was because it was interesting or because it was Yoongi. Everything he touched seemed mysterious and intriguing, sometimes ridiculous, at times intentionally so, but most of the time accidentally so. I’d stumbled my way onto the stage after being nudged back a few times by several body guards (I could’ve taken them. I have before.). He slipped a pair of headphones over my head, his fingers brushing the nape of my neck. He leaned around me and pointed to the things on the screen and around the console. I spent my fair share of time gaming, and I wondered what he would make of my Lumos. 

He started to try to balance Taehyung and dig around his tiny jean pockets for his keys. “Do you mind?” He motioned with his head towards Taehyung. I nodded and shifted to handle Taehyung’s full weight. 

“I think I’m gonna be sick...” the nearly unconscious man mumbled. 

“My brother seriously thinks this is a frat house...” Yoongi pushed open the door and we all stumbled inside, an almost delightfully sloppy six-legged swamp creature. The smell of salt air, cigarettes, and the little green tree air freshener that we’d swiped from the Uber and hung around our necks entered with us. It was a festive occasion. “Oh, hey. Didn’t think I’d see you for another month,” Yoongi said. 

I looked up from the floor where I was trying to A. Detangle limbs and B. Hide the blush from the way the petite music hoe had accidentally clutched onto my shirt instead of Taehyung’s. A Greek god of a man stood behind the kitchen counter, only dressed in a towel, his head coming up from the powdered sugar he was snorting. Would Homer have nutted? I was drunk. 

“Yeah. Well, don’t get used to it. I’ve got another twelve-hour shift in... uh...” he squinted out the window, buffering. His hair was plastic. I could’ve sworn it. I still would. “Twenty minutes.” 

“Jinyoung’s a resident at the hospital, so he usually sleeps there,” Yoongi explained, grunting as we flung Taehyung onto the couch. “This is Jin.” Yoongi crossed his arms and then uncrossed them, letting them hang strangely by his sides. I wanted to reach out and hold his hand, but I didn’t know him like that, a fact that I had to keep reminding myself. God, I was acting like I was in a fanfic or something. Or that play I was in high school, the one where I costarred with what’s his face? He’s on Broadway? It was a moment. 

“Nice to meet you, Jin. I’ll be out of here in a second,” Jinyoung said, swiping the leftover powder into a bag. He’d be perfect for Hoseok, I thought as I watched him neatly compartmentalize his drugs. Though on the other hand, Hoseok lived his one life all smushed together. It would be refreshing if he wasn’t such a cunt. 

“The kitchen counter, huh?” Yoongi asked, finally deciding to cross his arms. Jinyoung pretty much ignored him, looking at him just long enough to try to make ME feel a little less awkward (it didn’t work). He walked back to what I assumed was his room. “He wasn’t always like that. Actually, you know he was worse,” Yoongi nodded. “You want a beer?”

“Sure.” We walked two steps into the kitchen and I slid onto a bar stool. “He was worse?” I asked. 

“Mmmmm. I was too,” he shrugged and took a sip of his beer. “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“That sounds good.” I looked down again at the rim of the beer bottle. There was something about the night that made me shy, less cocky or confident or comfortable. I felt exposed in a way that the sunlight chased away. The everyday motions came closest to intersecting with reality after sunset. 

“So, I heard Tae muttering in the car about you going to Stockton? Does it have to do with the resident home?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s some certification. A lot of reading for a job that’s so hands on,” I shrugged. “My Professor just lectures on and on and I sit in the back, feet up, full on Christian Slater.”

Yoongi furrowed his brows. “Should I be concerned?” There was a smile playing around his lips.

“Bad metaphor I guess,” I laughed. 

“I’m already used to you speaking in sometimes misplaced movie quotes... anyway, if you ever need someone to flip flash cards, I’m your guy.” Yoongi paused, leaning away from the counter. He rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry. I really suck at this.”

“Talking? Or small talking?”

“Yes,” he laughed. “Or just. People, you know? Or maybe you don’t.”

“We’ve all been through it.”

“Have we though?” Yoongi asked. 

“We’ve all been through something. And yeah, it can’t be exactly how you feel, but I...” I paused and closed my eyes to organize my thoughts. “No. That’s it. I can’t know how you feel.”  
Yoongi blinked. “Where did you come from?” But it was less you’re a weirdo and more appreciation. I think.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you...” I trailed off, trying to gauge his reaction. He was still, watching and waiting for The Story. “I grew up here, and never left.” I felt like everyone from New Jersey wanted to leave. Or at least they should. I was always torn between the two. The self-loathing and the narcissistic tendencies of a people aggressively proud to be assholes.

“But I thought you said you just moved here a couple of months ago?”

“I just moved in with my roommates a couple of months ago,” I clarified. “Hard times and all that.”

“Childhood friend, right?”

“Unfortunately,” I said easily, leaning back on the stool. It seemed like both of us had exhaled tension we hadn’t known we were holding. 

“Yeah? Maybe we could switch,” Yoongi said. 

“Maybe they could switch,” I said. Too bold too bold Seokjin, but I was really trying to channel some kind of Jimin in his golden hours - dealing cards, bumming cigarettes, locking eyes with sexy crooners. My whole life was made up of other people’s stories. But I panicked at the last minute, or at least the sub part of my sub conscious did. Before he could respond I drained my beer and stood. “It’s late I should get going,” I said awkwardly. “Oh, I thought the DJing was pretty weird.”

“Oh,” Yoongi said quietly, and I wondered if he was trying not to bristle. I wondered what he was like before, back when he was “worse.”

“But I’m weird – and not in a Riverdale kinda way as bad as I sound. Your job is a lot more intricate than I would have thought. You have a really clever mind,” I said, though it was more a feeling than an observation. I didn’t know him. But I wanted to. I wanted to know how his mind worked, how his soul worked, his body. But because I’m me this all just manifested in pick-up lines somewhere in between shallow high school varsity player faking deep and serial killer sending letters with little cut out words. 

Yoongi opened his mouth to reply but at the same time, Taehyung rolled over and threw up on the tastefully geometric designed rug and Jinyoung emerged from his room. “It was nice meeting you,” I said to Jinyoung. “Sorry about the puke, Yoongi.” Then I left. It was either my most shining or my least shining moment.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin hangs out with elderly Jikook, and later, teaches Yoongi some guitar stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a comment below! I'd love to know what you guys think :)

“And every time I bring him up to Hoseok, I get asked why we haven’t had sex yet,” I complained to Jungkook. He brought a wrinkled hand to his chin as he studied the chessboard resting between us on the yellow plastic table cover. 

“Your friends are fucking assholes,” Jimin said loudly from where he was tucked in one of the two armchairs by the window. He looked over his shoulder at us, one finger tucked into his book, an eyebrow raised. He was still as slight as I imagine he was when he was young, though now he was comfortably round, made rounder by the two sweaters he was wearing. 

“Now honey…” Jungkook trailed off, peering at the chessboard.

“Don’t honey me. You’re one of those friends,” he warned, turning back towards the window. Jungkook looked over towards his husband, unable to keep the warmth from his eyes. I wanted people to be able to look at me and read in my eyes that I was in love. I pulled the knitted blanket closer around my shoulders. Jungkook had made it for me to keep in their room. I usually visited them at least once during my shifts, and sometimes during my days off. Last weekend we’d gone out to dinner, split a bottle of wine. Or should I say Jimin and I shared a bottle. Jimin said something funny about DrunkKook making an appearance and Jungkook, after sticking his tongue out playfully, hadn’t had a drop. 

“Checkmate,” Jungkook said. 

“Ah,” I sighed. I pulled my feet up on the chair with me. I was wearing my favorite pair of pink scrubs. They were a birthday present from my cousin, or second cousin’s mother? You know how it was with big families. Random children tumble out of the walls and get mashed potatoes on your only pair of decent jeans. That kind of deal. “We’ve only been texting for a couple of weeks. But I know I’m overthinking it, and I know I’m gonna fuck it up,” I said. 

“Didn’t you say that he was always laughing and saying that he was gonna fuck it up?” Jimin called. I slipped out of the chair and went over and sat on the edge of their air conditioner unit. Not that it was cold in here, though it wasn’t unbearably hot like in some of the other rooms. 

“Yeah,” I admitted. 

“Did you decide on a place for the first date? For our first date, Jungkookie wanted to take me dancing, but we stayed in the hotel room where I was crashing instead. Danced in our socks and drank a bottle of some kitchen reject. Eh, babe?” Jimin asked, his glasses slipping to the bottom of his nose.

“Whatever you need,” Jungkook replied. 

Jimin rolled his eyes and turned back to me. He put his wrinkled paperback – a trashy romance with a half-dressed hot dude and his equally hot half-dressed lady friend on the cover – on the side table. “Throes of Passion? Do you have a pirate kink? Wait, never mind, I don’t want to know,” I put up a hand. I was going to die for the sake of comedy one day. 

“The date, Jin?” Jimin asked again, raising his eyebrows. 

“Ah, well… I asked him to go out to dinner, or to a movie, or anywhere, and he said we weren’t ready for that kind of thing,” I said. I laid my head up against the window behind me and looked around their room. It was a fairly large one on the third floor. We have a mix of residents here, some requiring more assistance than others. Jikook didn’t need much medical assistance, but damn did they need interior decorating assistance. It looked like Fat Elvis threw up in here, white leather covering way too many surfaces. Not to mention that the incessant glory day flashbacks probably didn’t help Jungkook. The man in question was standing in the middle of their small kitchenette, hands tucked in the pockets of his loose slacks as he stared intently at the backsplash. “Jungkook, you good?” I asked. 

“Hm? Oh, fine. I was gonna get more coffee, does anyone want anything?” Jimin slurped down the rest of his coffee and patiently held his mug towards Jungkook, batting his eyelashes. Jungkook took it from him, leaning down to snag a kiss. Jimin waved him away. 

“Old man breath alert!” Jungkook laughed good naturedly and went to get more coffee. Jimin looked back towards me, his entire expression shifting. His eyebrows furrowed. “He said that to you?” 

“Well, yeah, but it’s fine if we text, or sometimes just chill? I’m teaching him some guitar this afternoon.” 

“Netflix and chill?” Jimin asked. I almost choked on my coffee. Jimin raised an eyebrow; actually, I was pretty sure Jimin always had either one or both eyebrows raised. 

“Dirty old man!” I teased. 

“That’s right. You thought I was reduced to discount bin at the local library sexy times, huh? Think again, pretty boy.” 

“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” I batted my eyelashes before cackling. 

“Don’t push it, pup.” 

My laughter quieted and I continued. “But no. Thus, why I’m pissed off at Hoseok. It’s no big deal. We’re just gonna goof around.” 

“Have you seen him in person since the hot brother and hot roommate incident?” 

“Just once or twice, nothing big, just grabbing a quick sandwich on his lunchbreak or something like that. You should have seen it. Last time we did an eating contest? He crushed me. Matched me every bite, and then he started eating twice the amount I did-”

“Jin, I’m wondering,” Jimin interrupted me, and then Jimin was interrupted by an efficient knock at the door. Me and Jimin locked eyes, both of us mouthing “Marley.” Her name was actually – I shit you not – Doc Brown, but – and I swore this was for the obvious reason and less her trying to lessen the divide between doctor and nurse and resident, etc. – we all just called her Marley. Marley and Me. Marley’s ghost. She’d heard them all (and for once, I hadn’t said any of them). 

Jungkook, slinging a towel over his shoulder, called, “Come in!” 

Marley stood in the doorway in maroon scrubs, her arms crossed. Her toned forearms brushed up against her stethoscope. “Hey, Jin, can I talk to you for a minute?” she asked, she had a quiet yet confident voice. If I could ever write a song, I’d want her to sing it. 

“Yeah, sure,” I said. Though I thought about taking a long time folding the blanket and setting it on Jimin’s knee, gathering my coffee mug, maybe scuffing my foot on the floor, I walked over to her without delay.

“You want a cup of coffee, Marley?” Jimin called. 

“No, thanks, Mr. Jeon-Park!” Marley replied. I could tell that Jimin was going to say something like, no, call me Jimin! But he couldn’t hide the contentment and joy in his eyes at the name. They’d waited so long to be married with a massive gaudy eyesore of a ceremony. It was definitely the best wedding I’ve been to. Honestly, it’s the only wedding I’ve ever been to – no way Mom’s wedding to Luke or Paul or Peter or whatever his name was counted. 

Marley shut the door behind us, and the harsh fluorescent lights and yellowing floor and ceiling and walls brought me back to the present. “Is everything okay?” I asked, smothering down the knot that had formed in my stomach. Or should I say intensified. “Do you want me to stop,” I started, looking back towards Jikook’s room. 

“Oh, no, no, I think it’s great for all of you. I was flipping through the charts and…” She had apparently pulled an entire clipboard out of her ass and was now flipping through it. “You finished the second floor already, right?” She looked up at me.

Was this a trap? “Yeah,” I said slowly. “I finished it an hour ago.” 

“And Mrs. Hopkins? She got her new pills, right?” 

“Yeah, the little blue ones? Yeah,” I repeated. Again. Yeah. I really was the human embodiment of one of those yellow streamer guys with the long arms that guard car dealerships…

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a little plastic container with a “Th” on it, filled with pills. We always had them organized by day. They sat in the center of her palm. “Jin. You skipped everyone on the second floor.” I took the container and held it in my fingers. They were, assumedly, Mrs. Hopkins’. “You’ve been here for a long time, and you’re a hardworking employee, and the residents really like you and the nurses and Dr. Perez really likes you too. But we made a promise, do you remember?” 

“I’m not senile,” I said, though it wasn’t moody or anything. I wasn’t sure where the words were coming from. 

“No, you’re not. Jin, we promised that if it got bad, you could call out of work and there wouldn’t be a problem. But, an entire floor?” I blinked though I held her brown eyes. I kept turning the plastic container around and around in my hands as she held up the clipboard and showed me where I signed it. I really thought I’d done it. But as soon as she’d held the container in her hand, I knew that I really didn’t. 

“I don’t always know,” I said. 

“Why don’t you take the week off, okay? You still have that name that Dr. Perez gave you?” I nodded and gave her back the pills and then went back into Jikook’s room to say goodbye. 

“I gotta go, but I’ll come by tomorrow, maybe?” 

“I thought we were on ‘restrictions?’” Jimin said, sticking the corner of his tongue out and making exaggerated air quotes. But I didn’t miss the way that his eyes darted over to where Jungkook was sitting by the window, his legs crossed and his paper resting against his knee. 

“Fuck the restrictions,” I laughed. “But I’ll see you, okay?” 

“Jin,” Jimin said, and he grabbed my arm. “What was all that about?” Jimin did not, under any circumstance, mince words or beat around the bush. He said that he’d spent his entire life controlling his behavior around other people, saying and thinking they way they wanted him to, and now it was his turn, goddammit. 

“Oh. Well, I missed a call from my mom because my phone was dead, and it looks like they have to take the dog to the vet. Nothing serious,” I said. It all felt serious. I was the least serious person and yet all the shit, all the time… sometimes it was easier, sometimes I didn’t see it, or understand it, or know it until it was too late. I thought about the ocean at night. The building, shattering, breaking of the waves on the sand. 

Jimin’s expression was neutral yet kind as he squeezed my arm. “Good luck with Yoongi this afternoon. You’re wonderful.” He dropped my arm and I stepped into the hallway. Wonderful, he’d said. Mr. Wonderful felt like throwing up.

“Hey, hey, come in!” Yoongi said brightly, though he continued to speak in an almost lazy Velcro tone. He stepped to the side and I inched past him. I kinda forgot how to work with my long limbs for a second, like I was in high school again, and the girl on the cheer team – the one who wasn’t the captain, but could’ve been but never, ever wanted to? – wanted to hook up in the backseat of her car after prom but I was sixteen and my limbs took up all the room? It was sloppy af. Like some kind of avant garde art piece. 

“Oh, you cleaned up for me? That was nice, but I gotta say I thought the cocaine on the counter really added another layer. Like, instead of a diamond chandelier, or a prep school uniform, or like… an eighties power suit and a bowl of caviar?” 

Yoongi turned to close the door, looking over his shoulder at me with a bemused smile. “You talk like that, but has anyone told you you text like an old man?” 

“Has anyone ever told you you text like a pre-teen?” I responded easily, going over to the couch like I wasn’t freaking the fuck out. I’d only been here the one night. The other times we’d seen each other we’d hung out in his car behind the Wawa and listened to music through the aux cord he’d rigged up to play from the cassette player in his 1999 Honda Civic. But here I was, acting like I was deep in my element. Yoongi raised an eyebrow under his beanie and sat on the opposite side of the couch from me. “You know it’s almost eighty degrees outside?” I asked. 

“For the hat?” 

“Jin, you’re wearing a sweatshirt and jeans,” Yoongi laughed, sitting up and kneeling in between us to reach over the back of the couch and pull out his guitar. His knee was super close to my knee, if I might add.

“Sorry, I’m really nervous.” 

He furrowed his brow as he sat back down. “Do I make you nervous? I mean. People used to tell me all the time that I was intimidating…” he trailed off and scrubbed a hand behind his head. 

“It’s not that kind of nervous,” I laughed. 

“Oh,” he looked down at his guitar before springing up and into the kitchenette, trying to hid the blush that had drifted across the tops of his cheeks. “Water?” 

“Sure!” 

“So, how’s your class? And, what’s their names, your friends at work?” 

“Shitty, and fantastic.” 

“You need any help?” he asked, setting the water down on the Smiths CD that was functioning as a coaster. “Wait, wait, I have no clue about nursing. Forget I said anything. It would just be me googling and you failing,” he laughed. 

“I feel like you’re a quick learner, and I don’t mean that as a come on,” I clarified. I’d often noticed that when I talk with people, there mouth is usually just a little open – you’ve heard of mic drop, how about the ole jaw drop? 

“I like knowing things. My friends and I pass books around too. You want in?” he asked. 

“I’m not much of a reader,” I said, shrugging before bending down and lifting my guitar from its case. Out of the corner of my eye, I searched for traces of Taehyung’s puke. It was all clear. “Okay. Follow me. I suck but I might suck just a little less than you.” 

“Hey!” he laughed. “Where’d you learn?” 

“My dad,” I said, smiling. “I wanted to learn drums.” 

“I’m sure you did.” 

“Why’s that?” I asked. 

“You’re very not subtle. Unsubtle. Not…” Yoongi frowned. 

“Okay, Smart Guy…” I teased. He shoved my shoulder playfully, his hand lingering for just a moment before he gestured down at the guitar. “Let’s just do chords, okay?” I played some things, and he followed. 

“What’s that one again?” he murmured, concentrating down at my hands while I looked at his eyes. I wondered if they’d glow gold if he turned just slightly in the late afternoon sun. Dust motes flew around us. 

“Hm?” I asked, looking down at my own hands before propping my guitar up on the ground against the couch. I scooched closer to him, and this time our knees really did touch. “It’s F. It’s a little fucky, but it’ll get easy…” I moved his fingers around with way more contact than was necessary, my other hand on his knee. He laughed but didn’t move. “What’s wrong?” 

“You’re a shitty teacher, Jin,” he said, his laughter trickling to a dull ache in the ribs. I watched his mouth form his words. Was it just me, or was the world moving in slow motion? His mouth went neutral and my eyes skipped away from his lips back to the rest of his face. “I know you said you haven’t done this much before, but you’re lying.” The tension in my stomach splintered and I started to lean away from him. 

“Done what?” 

“Dated.” He paused, and he was so serious. “Because I feel like I’m gonna melt. I need you to kiss me right now,” he continued. And I realized that he’d placed his hand onto my hand on his knee. “Jesus,” he panicked. “I’ve never –” but I’d already leaned forward and snagged our lips together. 

We pulled apart, and because it was a blue moon, and because God loved me, Mint Yoongi met my eyes. “Yoongi, how’d you get that laugh in your eye?” 

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

“Lying to myself.” 

“Me too,” he half-smiled again, a quirk of his lips that made my hands quiver around his. His lips went neutral again, his eyes flickering over my shoulder, presumably down the hallway, presumably towards Jinyoung’s room. I ran my fingers over his knuckles where our hands were still intwined on the frets. 

“What are you doing tonight?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Jin, what am I doing tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this whole fic was written post In the Soop when Yoonjin said that they were always vibing! Also, I watched this video for the first time not so long ago: https://youtu.be/5di6d2NvOzQ . (Just some fun facts lmao)


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin and Yoongi unwisely visit the Longwood Diner where Hoseok is manager. Chapter contains: cute flirting, movie dissing, shithead Hoseok, and awkward tension you can cut with a knife.

It was a terribly orchestrated plan. If I wasn’t such a blessed mixture of over confident and self-destructive, then I probably would’ve kept Yoongi as far away from the Longwood Diner as possible. “Oh, this place is rancid,” he said with appreciation as we slid into the sticky booth. The waitress untucked a couple of menus from her apron. The cheap plastic slapped against the linoleum table as my shirt got caught and torn in the metal edging. 

“Need a couple more minutes?” she asked. Her name tag – well, should I say that the sticker that had been layered on top of several other stickers on a piece of faded red plastic – read Lucy. Yoongi and I looked at the menus that she’d just set down and then each other. 

“Burger?” he asked. 

“Milkshake?” I countered. 

Yoongi looked towards Lucy. “Both please.” 

“But just one milkshake,” I added. “Thanks.”

“One milkshake? I thought you said you were weird but ‘not in a Riverdale way,’” he said as he made finger quotes. 

“Hey, there’s plenty of movies that have milkshake sharing in them…” There was too. I felt like every movie had the best little moments. The kind that sometimes, in life, you forgot or skimmed over, things that didn’t seem important at the time were magnified on the big screen, bookended by a birth at one side and a death on the other, and there it was. Four weddings. One funeral.

“What’s your favorite movie?” he asked, flipping through the filthy menu even as his foot ran up the outside of my calf. Warm air that could only have belonged to a lazy summer night drifted in through the open door. “And if you say Citizen Kane or Casablanca, I’m leaving you at this scuzzy hole,” he said absently. 

“But –”

“Eh –”

“Yoongi –”

“Nope.” 

“Okay,” I laughed. I wouldn’t have picked either of those anyway. “But choosing a favorite is like choosing a favorite out of who I watched it with or who showed me,” I tried to explain. I’d watched a lot of movies this past year, but I didn’t think I could watch those same ones again. 

“Ah,” he said, leaning back against the red vinyl seat. He looked just over my shoulder, his eyes flickering over my face every so often. “So, I’m gonna have to be very calculating in what movie I show you…”

“If you choose Fight Club, we’re breaking up,” I said cheekily, echoing his words from a few minutes ago. 

“We’re dating?” he asked, his eyebrow flickering. 

“Not yet,” I countered. His cheeks burned, and the waitress dropped the stuff down on our table. “Thanks!” I called. 

“Oh, hey Jin. I thought you swore off of this place after you killed the rat in the bathroom,” Hoseok said from behind me. Yoongi paused, burger held aloft in his hands, mouth half-open. I half-turned in my seat. Hoseok was coolly brushing his hair away from his face with one hand and tucking his shirt in with the other. The bathroom door creaked open and another employee ducked out and back towards the kitchen. 

“Ten know about that?” I asked, though there was really no way that he couldn’t. Still, I liked Ten a whole shit more than I liked Hoseok. Hoseok was force of habit. 

Hoseok waved a hand at my question, stepping forward and resting a hand on the back of my booth, leaning forward and snagging a fry. “Jin, babe, you owe me rent.” 

“I don’t,” I said, but I wasn’t sure. Of course, I couldn’t be sure. I thought back to my scribble on the checklist at the home, or the neat plastic container huddled in Marley’s palm. 

“Car insurance then?” 

“I don’t drive the car, Hoseok,” I said. 

“Then what about the scratch near the fender?” Hoseok said. He smiled sweetly. It was terrifying. 

“That wasn’t even this year, Hoseok. Plus, I explained to you in the ER that it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t even Ten’s fault.”

“ER?” Yoongi asked, his eyebrows furrowing. 

“I was just fucking with you,” Hoseok said, and was it just my Yoongi-intoxicated mind or did his brown eyes actually have some kind of regret in them? Maybe it was indigestion. Or some kind of residual post-orgasm glow? “So, this is mystery date,” Hoseok continued, turning towards Yoongi. 

“No, I’m Yoongi,” he said. I hadn’t known him long, or at all, and even though I relapse sometimes even I’m not stupid enough to think that I can read him like a book. But his shoulders were tense, and his eyes kept flickering between me and Hoseok. Hoseok has that effect on people.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. Yoongi,” Hoseok added. Yoongi gave a nod and a half-smile that was more a grimace, though his eyes remained flat. “I’m Jin’s landlord.”

“Roommate,” I corrected. 

“Fuck you, Hoseok!” our waitress screamed from halfway across the restaurant. She ducked under the counter and threw her apron at the human garbage I was unfortunately stuck with. 

“What I do now, Lucy!” The few diners who were seated around them shifted uncomfortably, suddenly very intent on their half-cooked chicken or runny eggs. 

“You just fucked my boyfriend in the bathroom!”

“We used protection!” Hoseok shrugged. I was self-destructive, but my tendencies were a side-effect of my personality. Hoseok was just destructive. I was pretty sure he laid awake at night plotting the ways he could make other people feel shitty.

Yoongi leaned forward across the table and grabbed my wrist. “Can we go?” he asked in a low voice. 

“Yeah, of course.” I started to rummage through my pocket for my wallet.

“Don’t worry about this one, kiddies,” Hoseok said, shooing my wallet away. “I know how new relationships are... go make babies or whatever.”

I wiped my hands on my pants, and stood. We walked awkwardly out of the diner. The sun was on its way out, laying its body low over the rooftops, the light dripping down the sides of perfect stucco buildings, geometric siding, edged in shell lawns. I like things in order. Probably because I was out of order.

We walked for a bit until the sidewalk turned into sand. Yoongi reached up and clutched at my shoulder, tugging off his shoes and socks. “Your friend’s a major asshole,” Yoongi started in a rumble. He started to topple in the uneven sand and my hand darted out and grabbed his hip to steady him. It wasn’t a move or anything, it was the ole mom in the driver’s seat hand flying out to save you from smashing your face in the dashboard light. Not that I felt like a mother towards Yoongi. I just wanted him to be comfortable. I’d made him uncomfortable.

“Yeah, he sucks,” I laughed as we continued onto the beach. I hopped a little to take my shoes off as we walked. 

For once, Yoongi didn’t laugh at me. I was used to people laughing at me. “He’s not funny or quirky, Jin. He’s a bastard.” Yoongi stopped and I turned back towards him. He sighed and pushed the hair off of his forehead with his palm. “I don’t understand why you even took me there. Your ‘friend’ is a big turnoff. He made me feel gross because he obviously made you feel gross.”

“No, no. We’re like brothers who fight a lot. I used to eat dinner at his house when we were little and we would fight over the seat. It’s the same thing.” I waved him off. Hoseok was the kind of brother who dropped water on your head to make you wet the bed. Then again, I’d done it to him plenty of times before too.

Yoongi stopped and looked at me. “I didn’t understand a lot of what he was doing or saying, but he likes to confuse you, and also I think people for him are like dancing monkeys,” he said with a serious expression, a serious intonation.

“I like it. It makes me feel seen,” I said defensively. 

Yoongi stepped forward and ran a hand up my neck before grabbing my ear. “Your ears are red.”

“I’m kinda turned on right now by serious Yoongi.”

“It’s your tell,” Yoongi said with a shy smile. “You don’t have to lie to me. I’m not trying to save you from your tower or tell you what you like but I want you to know that I think you’re wonderful and other people don’t deserve to look at you like that,” he said softly, releasing my ear and stepping back and crossing his arms. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I just said you don’t know me and here I am psychoanalyzing you,” he laughed at himself. “Let’s talk about something else,” he offered. 

“Come on,” I said and held out my hand. He grabbed it and we started walking again. But I could still feel him thinking about Hoseok. He’d waved things away when they got too deep. I did the same thing. I wondered if it was always like that for him, or if he was trying something new, trying not to fuck up in the same ways, afraid of getting too deep too soon. Maybe he wasn’t ready. Maybe he wasn’t good for other people. Maybe he cut other people when the only thing he wanted was to love other people, and have people love him. 

“Cat or dog?” Yoongi asked. The sand was still warm from the sun. The sky was indigo streaked through with deep orange, though the sunset had never known this part of the Atlantic. 

“I’ve got a cat!”

“Yeah? Honestly you seem more like a dog person,” Yoongi replied. 

“We had to flip a coin for that one. It was a major thing between Hoseok and Ten.” 

“Is Ten like Hoseok, or is he more…” 

“Palatable?” I laughed. “I guess so. He’s… interesting.” 

“I’m getting the feeling that everyone you know is… ‘interesting.’” He did air quotes with the hand that wasn’t tangled in mine, his eyes going comically wide. 

“Mmmm, what about you?” I asked. It was really unbearably romantic now that we’d briefly skirted over my continuous trauma at the hands of my roommate and gone onto more important topics of conversation. Like vague, lame jokes about the shitty people in my life. I could feel the moment like the ocean. I spent my life getting swept away, but my feet were stubbornly stuck in the sand. “Jinyoung and Taehyung are ‘interesting.’”

“Well, yeah. Tae is a mess, but he’s so comfortable with himself…” Yoongi trailed off, looking out onto the water like he was looking for pale moonlight. “I guess you can tell that I’m all for distracting you by poking at other people and not myself.”

“That’s my job, actually,” I pointed out. “I’m a deflection master. Sometime I’ll tell you about this guy I met online…” 

“Was this the guy you stole that title from?” he asked.

“Something like that… but basically, you don’t have to get deep with me.”

“That’s not much of a relationship.” I could hear his raised eyebrow.

“Okay then. Tell me about you and Jinyoung.” 

“Sometime I’ll tell you about this guy I was nuts about, except it was supposed to only be sex and then it got messy.” I wrapped my arms around him from behind, nuzzled my cheek against his hair. “Are you referencing Titanic now?” he teased, holding his arms out to the sides. 

“I wasn’t, cause they both die, and this story has a happy ending.” 

“Does it? Seriously. But also, not seriously. Because I’ve been serious,” Yoongi murmured. 

“Me too.”

“I knew you weren’t new at relationships.” I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to let go of him and walk away or tighten my arms around him. I tightened my arms. I had this habit of staying. The worse it got, the more I stuck it out, the more it hurt. “Do you want to come back to my place for a drink?” he asked. He turned around suddenly in my arms. “But not to have sex or anything. Is that okay?” 

I shrugged. “I’m not the sexiest guy anyway. Don’t know if you noticed, but I move like a pool noodle.” He laughed. Perfect.

“Then why the hell are you always saying how horny you are!” 

“Deflection. I lie a lot,” I said with sincerity that looked really insincere and kinda sarcastic? I’m a layered person. I lost myself a few years back. If you see Kim Seokjin point him in my direction. I’m the guy in the pink sweatshirt with a hot DJ in his arms.

“Yeah?” Yoongi asked with a glint in his eye. “But seriously. I think it would be nice to fall asleep in your arms tonight.” 

“As you wish.” I replied. 

“You seem sarcastic, but I don’t think that’s what happening,” Yoongi replied. 

“I’m not really sure what’s happening. I only know that to avoid doing anything too romantic I’m not gonna do what I was thinking about doing.” Yoongi waited, his hands still against my sides. “I want to lay down in the sand with you and kiss you and let the waves come around us.” 

“I don’t think that works,” Yoongi said.

“It’s worked before.” 

“Oh yeah? I’m not the only person you’ve walked with in the moonlight, huh?” he raised an eyebrow. 

“It worked in a pool,” I replied easily. It wasn’t even my pool or a hotel pool. We’d hopped fences one time in high school after a party, catching bruises we wouldn’t feel until two days later. 

“Hoseok was there. You could ask him.” 

“That’s a bit different. Unless some Boomer in Cape May has a wave pool in their backyard…” 

“Exactly!” I exclaimed with boy-like glee. Yoongi was right. Hoseok was shitty. He didn’t respect me. But half of what I’d experienced growing up, half the only times I left my room or felt anything, that was all Hoseok. It would all feel sweeter if it didn’t feel like I owed him my adulthood too. 

Yoongi pulled me closer and kissed me. I had to follow him because he kept walking backwards, and even though I knew what he was about to do, I let him push me into the waves. Freefall. Trust fall. Frolic. He stood above me and laughed without sound. “Hey, not so fast!” I screamed as he tried to turn and run away. I reached out and grabbed his leg, pulling him down into the water next to me. He spluttered as he came to the surface. We got pummeled by the waves from behind and I quickly grabbed his beanie off of his head. His mint green hair sparkled in the rising moonlight. “Sorry about the hat, Yoongi.” I squeezed it out over his head. 

He lips were pressed into a comical thin line. “Now I have sand in strange places.” 

“Don’t start what you can’t finish,” I said. 

“What movie is that from?” 

“Terminator probably.” I stood up, my sweatshirt dripping. “Truce?” I asked, holding my hand out. Yoongi nodded, grabbing my hand and yanking me back into the water. 

“Finished it,” he laughed. 

“Shhhhhh,” Yoongi laughed as he held the door open to his apartment. 

“Oh, is Jinyoung here?” I whispered.

“No, but you were screeching all the way up the stairs.” 

“Hey, can we have a sleepover with Taehyung sometime? I’d love to get some hair tips from him,” I said suddenly. I looked over towards the couch wistfully. Sometimes I thought things were better in threes. It usually meant less opportunities for me to stick my foot in my mouth. More people to remember things the way they are, not the way I wanted them to be. 

“By going out with you, am I actually adopting you?” Yoongi asked, starting to rummage around the kitchen cabinets. 

“That’s funny. I was just thinking about you in a mother-son way.” 

Yoongi paused, looking at me over his shoulder. “Yeah?” Ah yes, he was beginning to understand that I completely lack a filter. This was the part where I take my exit. You see, earlier when I said that thing about Hoseok having that effect on people, I forgot to add that it’s really the same effect with me. 

“Well, I thought that, but I didn’t mean it like that. I was imagined the whole pizza box on the passenger seat metaphor.” 

“I’m the pizza box?” 

“Well, no… okay, this is extremely painful. I’m just gonna…” 

But Yoongi had already turned around and slapped two glasses on the counter, popping the cork out of a small bottle of liquor. He slid it towards me. As if this couldn’t get even more embarrassing. I was considering asking for sugar to put in the whiskey. “Quit acting like me,” Yoongi joked, his mouth quirked into a sexy smirk. 

“Um.” I was flustered. I was dripping onto his floor. 

“Oh, oh!” Yoongi laughed, and thank fuck the spell was broken. “I’m too busy trying not to look like an asshole seducing you without trying to seduce you that I didn’t realize that you’re probably really uncomfortable.” He winced. “Was that too much? I’m trying to be more honest.” Was it because he thought I was more honest? “But um, if you wanna shower? I can…” Yoongi trailed off, looking down at himself and then at my gangly arms and legs. “Get you something of Jinyoung’s to wear,” he finished. 

“Is that gonna be weird for you?” I asked. “Okay. I’ll run down and steal something from your building laundry. Or I can go to the corner store and grab a novelty tee or something. Or I can throw what I’m wearing now into the laundry…” 

“You’d do all that for me?” Yoongi interrupted. 

“Yeah,” I shrugged. 

“Is this too much for you?” he asked. 

“What? No.”

“Because you look… uncomfortable.” 

“Okay. Yeah. I’m freaking out here, and trying not to talk too much because I fuck it up when I speak,” I blurted. “And… I think that holding you through the night is a lot more intimate than sex,” I said quietly. My sweatshirt dripped again onto the carpet. 

Yoongi nodded. “I guess I agree with that. Sorry, I’m treating you like an experiment, trying not to start things with sex like before…” 

“I had something good go wrong too,” I told him, and I was sure that it was true. Even after everything, there was no way what I was feeling was made up. There was no way the fear that I felt was a lie. He took a few steps towards me, his hair drying unevenly like a cloud around his head. He hesitated and I pulled him close to me like Bogart and Bergman. We hugged close and tightly. “You have no idea how bad I want to fall in love with you,” I whispered. I’m not sure if he heard me. 

He pulled away and tugged at the bottom of my sweatshirt. “Let me get you something to wear, okay?” 

“Okay.”


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after. Also, Yoongi and Jin go to collect elderly Jikook for a day of fun! Which may or may not be for the best in the long run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a comment below or some kudos :) I'd love to know what you guys think! Also, I just finished a semi-sequel one shot-ish from Hoseok's POV! Let me know if you'd like to read it.

I woke up lazier than usual, a puddle of sunlight beside me on the messy grey comforter. My stomach churned until I remembered Marley and my current benched status. There was the name of a doctor burning a hole in the pocket of one of my many pairs of pastel scrubs. I sat up and looked curiously around Yoongi’s room. It was cozy with stacked piles of books. Records and headphones and random cords were scattered across every flat surface. It was almost a necessity that the walls were a medium blue and that there were a few shells and pieces of driftwood here and there too. That last death-defying screech of Jersey Shore. I rubbed a hand through my hair as I laughed at myself. 

I threw back the covers, stood and stepped into the living room. It smelled like bacon, and the air was smoky. My brother always burnt shit like this. Saturday morning cartoons as that guy managed to burn cereal, even. “How’s this?” Yoongi asked. 

“Mm, add more vanilla,” Jinyoung rumbled in reply. 

“Mornin’!” I called as I walked through the living room into the kitchen. 

“Hey!” Yoongi called over his shoulder. 

“I’m not going to say you wear them better than me,” Jinyoung laughed, nodding at the sweatpants and slightly ratty Phillies shirt Yoongi’d snatched from Jinyoung’s room. 

“But I wear them better than you,” I finished with a nod. 

Jinyoung smiled, his eyes crinkling around the edges. “Yoongi, I knew that you’ve been waiting for the chance to steal that t-shirt,” Jinyoung joked, nudging Yoongi’s leg with his foot. 

“Oh, shut up and flip the pancakes,” Yoongi mumbled, shooting me a glimmery-eyed smile behind his roommate’s back. “How’d you sleep?” 

“Eh, there was an elbow in my back all night.” Yoongi raised an eyebrow at me. I just laughed. It was the sweetest sleep I’d ever had. I liked beginnings. 

“I think you should revoke his cuddle license,” Jinyoung quipped to Yoongi. 

“I’m surprised you’re home,” I said towards Jinyoung. “Is this yours?” I picked up a cup of coffee and held it towards Yoongi. 

“Mmmhm,” Yoongi said absently. I took a sip. 

Jinyoung was staring at me. “Um, yeah.” 

“I mean the last couple times I’ve met you…” 

“You only met me once,” Jinyoung was staring at me with a funny look on his face. 

I blinked. “That’s what I said. The one time –”

“No. You didn’t.” Jinyoung keep staring at me. 

“You’re burning the pancakes!” Yoongi shouted over his shoulder. 

“Oh, oh, shit… but yeah, I took the day off. I’m going to laze around…” 

“You never laze,” Yoongi said, forcibly taking the spatula from him. I held his mug out to him. He leaned over and opened his mouth a bit, so I tipped the coffee into his mouth. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Jinyoung asked, eyes wide. 

“Jin likes cute things. Two straws in a milkshake cute.” I knew he was bullshitting, but it wasn’t a lie that I love pretty things. 

“Oh, yeah? And so, you’re cute now too?” 

“He’s right,” I acknowledged out loud. “I used to collect everything when I was younger. Shells, sparkly rocks, press flowers in my books. I’ll show you them sometime. Not you, Jinyoung, I don’t want you inside my head.” He’d already been too close for comfort. 

Yoongi snorted. “Don’t worry, spaghetti man, I’m not interested in being in there,” Jinyoung replied with a surprised huff. His eyes sparkled as he planted his hands on his hips. 

“I should go wash my clothes,” I said suddenly, sliding off of the stool. 

“Oh, I did that already…” Yoongi said, starting in an exclamation and trailing off. “I just wanted you to feel comfortable. Here,” he added, his eyes darting to the side towards Jinyoung, who still stood staring at me with his hands on his hips. 

I leaned across the counter and pecked him on the cheek. As I walked away, I heard Jinyoung mock playfully, “I want you to feel comfortable.” Yoongi murmured something unintelligible in response. “I like him, Yoongi. I’m happy for you.” 

I found my clothes folded neatly on an armchair by the window. I paused, the smile on my face stuck. Would any of the people I’d loved before, or fucked up before, or loved and fucked up, or just stared at a little too long that one time before they threw a couple darts from one of those balloon boardwalk games at me… I shook my head. Would he be happy for me? If he were here? 

“Hey, Leta!” I waved as me and Yoongi walked into the home. She gave an odd look at my scrubs-less look. I just gave her a thumbs up and continued to the elevator. “They’re on the third floor,” I said unnecessarily. Being around Yoongi made me do this a lot more, actually. Fill the space, the silence. It wasn’t comfortable silence yet. 

“Yeah? So, you usually work the third floor?” Yoongi mumbled absently, eyelashes low and pretty on his cheeks as he flicked through his phone.

“Well, no. I’m an all-around guy. Second in command, actually. But not a close second. Marley is far ahead of me,” I laughed. 

“Marley?” he echoed, looking down the hallway and slipping his phone in his pocket.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked. The doors opened then and we stepped to either side. 

“Jin!” Dr. Perez looked up, what looked like genuine care blooming in her eyes. “Hi,” she said, tilting her head and turning towards Yoongi. 

“Hi,” Yoongi said.

“This is Yoongi. Yoongi this is Dr. Perez. He’s this guy that I moved in with after knowing for a week, but don’t worry, Doc, I think he’s great for my health,” I winked. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Yoongi’s eyes widen. My fingers were buzzing. All I wanted was to smash all the keys and stop the elevator in between floors. Just me and Yoongi, my mouth and mind taimed or killed, hung out to dry. 

Dr. Perez smiled warmly, though it didn’t meet her eyes. “Nice to meet you, Yoongi. Jin, if you need anything, call me, hm?” she said, squeezing my arm as she passed, three-inch heels poking holes in the linoleum as she strode through the yellowing hallway like it was Versailles. Or at least Caesars. 

The elevator doors sucked to a close, sticking there, a shy peck on the lips held too long without any clue how to continue. I didn’t have a clue on how to continue. I watched our reflections in the grimy stainless steel. Beam me up, huh? Scotty? You there? 

“Jin, what was that?” Yoongi asked incredulously, though he didn’t seem pissed or anything. 

“Hm? The inappropriate implied remark about our non-existent sex life, or the doctor’s vague comments about my health?” I asked. The doors slid open and we stepped into the hallway. 

“Um. Both I guess. But I was mostly thinking the first one,” he murmured. 

“Oh,” I stopped. “I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes trailing up his face to his eyes. “My mouth runs away. Most of the time actually.” 

Yoongi smiled a lopsided smile that could’ve really really hurt me if I’d been standing in the same hallway as him. “Thanks,” he said. “Seriously,” he laughed and grabbed for my hand when I started to walk towards Jikook’s room. “Don’t run away from me,” he teased.

“Oh, I wasn’t really,” I said, trying to contain a smile. I’m not sure if it was a lie, but I felt like I could know if it was. I felt like if I peered at the potted plant in the corner, I could see how all the cells make a word. I felt like Yoongi’s earnest eyes were gonna bury me, and I was standing in the yellow bits of the road, the yellow bits in the tile, the yellow bits of the setting sun that dripped around him. 

“Where’d you go?” he asked softly. 

“I fell deep,” I answered. 

“Jin, can I tell you something?” 

“A secret?” I raised my eyebrows. “Is it a sexy secret?” 

“Come here,” he said, playfully exasperated, dragging me through an EXIT door and into the stairwell. I fiddled with his hat, trying to pull it over his ears. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked quietly, suddenly Serious Yoongi again. 

“What? What about the secret? You promised drama Yoongi!” I laughed. “I’m missing my soaps for this…”

“I lied,” he shrugged. I blinked hard. 

“Oh.” 

He crossed his arms and looked towards the floor. “I’m confused. You invite me here, or or, we have a great night, then a shitty night, then a…”

“I know,” I said quietly. As quietly as humanly possible. No, as quiet as Jin possible. No, Kim possible. It was lovely, he meant. And it was. I tucked my face away from sight, from mind, in the back of his neck. I kissed the back of his neck, and he’d kissed the back of my hand, and there were no words, no confusion, nothing crossed any lines. We were lines in the moonlight. But was it better or worse that I wasn’t myself in that moment? Or was I so myself in that moment that it all just didn’t hold up in daylight?

“I think I should go, and then…” 

“I was thinking about how I’m not sure when I’m me, and I’m not sure if last night’s me was the real one,” I told him. My eyes burned. “And I was thinking about how my mouth fucks everything up. And I can’t pretend to know what you want to hear…” I trailed off. 

“Your voice, for one. It’s annoying, yeah. And you woke all my neighbors up the other night with your screaming…” I raised an eyebrow. “But,” he laughed. “I like that it belongs to you. And your mouth makes everything better. You’re rough but…” I raised both eyebrows. He laughed, unfolding his arms and relaxing, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “See?” 

I couldn’t see what he saw, though at this point we were both holding shadows. “Yeah,” I smiled. “Why do I want you to leave again?” 

“Okay, okay, maybe I was projecting a bit,” he laughed. 

I furrowed my brow. “Do you want to leave?” I asked suddenly. My incessant self-centering was remarkable. 

“I just have bad shit with places like this.” 

“Let’s leave, okay? It’s not a big deal. Or if you want to wait in the car, and I’ll grab the happy couple…” 

“No, no! It’s okay. Seriously. Now that I redirected my anxiety onto you, I feel perfectly fine,” he joked. We were a mess. It was kinda hot. 

“Okay. Is there anything else I can do for you?” I tilted my head to the side cheekily. He smiled and shook his head, not in a “no,” but just at me, partially exasperated, partially charmed. It was familiar. I stepped towards him and he looped his hands around my neck, and I had to bend over a bit to kiss him. Wasn’t this, then, comfortable silence? He nudged me backwards. 

“Okay, last time you did that you threw me into the ocean. Are you gonna throw me down the steps now? Because my back’s already fucked,” I joked. 

“Already? Throwing out your back is one of my favorite pastimes.” 

“Get in line, Yoongi. Ooomph,” I exhaled on a half-laugh as he knocked me into the wall. “This is beautifully illicit and all, but my elderly parental figures are… mmasdfjkl… Yoon…” I guess I should’ve predicted all this. He did say that my mouth makes everything better. He’d probably be sorely mistaken eventually, but for now, we were good. 

“Are you two done, yet? Because as easy as it would be for Jungkook and I to have a quickie in the shower, I respect my pup friend when he tells me he’ll be here by noon,” Jimin quipped, ducking his head in through the doorway. 

I pulled away from Yoongi, my lips tingling. “I do not get paid enough to help you guys out of the shower after that inevitably goes wrong.” 

“Did you say pup?” Yoongi laughed, unlacing his arms and moving a hand to loosely clutch at the side of my sweatshirt. 

“Yes,” Jimin said. 

“Are you two ready?” I asked. 

“Are you?” Jimin asked, eyebrows raised. 

“It doesn’t take me long,” I answered. 

“No?” Jimin and Yoongi asked in unison.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoonmin bicker, Jikook get nostalgic, Jin throws an impromptu party, and Hoseok is an asshole (just another day in paradise).

We sat on a bench on the side of the boardwalk, Jimin and Jungkook in the middle as me and Yoongi sat on the back of the seat on either end of them. “Your hair matches the cotton candy,” I mentioned, watching the sun halo around Yoongi. It was a bit much. I stared at the sun a few times, so I was only guessing the part about the matching hair color since I actually could no longer see color. 

“Yeah, it’s fading,” Yoongi said, frowning up at his hair and swiping at it. 

“Remember when I went mint, Kookie?” Jimin asked, nudging his husband’s leg with a toe perfectly pointed in his Keds.

“You used to dye your hair?” Yoongi asked, making his voice over the top exaggerated. It was fan-fucking-tastic. He’d met Jimin for five minutes, and proceeded to know every way to get under his skin. All in good fun. Of course, I wouldn’t let either of them go too far. Have I ever let anything go too far? Okay, okay, not the best judge here, but damn I looked cute. 

“If you even think ‘old man,’ I’m gonna…” 

“What?” Yoongi asked, cocking his head, tongue peeking out from between his lips. 

Jimin blinked slowly before his face inched out towards a smile. “Hey, JK, you good?” I asked, bending over to look into his face. 

“Of course,” he said softly, watching the people pass on the boardwalk with a wistful look on his face. I wondered where he was. He was here, but was he also there, in the past? I didn’t let myself mediate, muse. But sometimes, at night, I thought about the faces that were around me, or the ones I loved to forget, and wondered what it was like-

“Good,” I said to Jungkook, flipping my hair out of my eyes, and squeezing his shoulder.

“Jin, want any?” Yoongi mumbled towards the cotton candy. “Damn, you weren’t kidding about the hair,” Yoongi squinted at my hair. His eyes were chocolate in the light. I ran a hand through my hair, feeling for the grey pieces. 

“Edgy, huh? I’m a real E-Girl I’ll have you know. I do the TikTok. I’m old, not dead,” I rambled.

“None of those statements made sense, Jinnie,” Jimin said matter-of-factly with a bob of his head to match. 

“Here,” Yoongi said. I looked over and leaned towards him, snagging the cotton candy off of his fingers. 

“Well, you’ve found the way to his heart,” Jungkook joked, glancing in between us warmly. Jimin snaked an arm around Jungkook’s middle and pulled him closer. Jungkook flicked the brim of Jimin’s hat. 

“I’m pretty sure the way to his heart is his di… disastrous fashion sense,” Yoongi finished, starting to blush. Damn. Yoongi really wanted my di… disastrous fashion sense. Yoongi looked at the cotton candy in his hand as if wondering what made him say that, especially in front of my surrogate parents. It was funny. I’m happy he said it.

“Thanks, Yoongi,” I laughed. “But I think you should know I’m ultimate shit at sex. I haven’t even dated, or not dated, in forever, so sorry if I’ve been overhyping my… fashion… sense.” I said all of this very loudly around the cotton candy in my mouth. At the same time, the trolly passed. 

“Watch the tram car, please!” Wheels tripped over the individual slats. I looked over at the others. Yoongi and Jungkook had started talking about the music industry (which Jungkook still kept track of, as best as he could. He would still have long-winded long-distance conversations with producers from back in the day.). I started when I realized that Jimin was staring at me. His big sleepy eyes were infrared, don’t move, they can’t see you if you don’t move. 

“Jimin, are you –” My phone rang, Baby One More Time even louder than I was talking just a second ago. 

“Shit,” Jungkook exhaled. “I’m on rough ground here, Jin. Sudden loud noises are not the best idea.” 

“Kookie, it’s probably the best song to go out on,” Jimin laughed. 

I glanced at the phone then back at three pairs of eyes. “Voicemail,” I shrugged.

“What if it’s the home?” Jungkook said around a mouthful of fried Oreo. “Can we live with you if we get kicked out?” 

“I know I’m new in town, but I’m imagining Jimin and Hoseok under the same roof, and it sounds absolutely heinous,” Yoongi offered, one hand raised cutely. I grabbed his hand and tangled out fingers together on the back of the seat in between us. 

“The beginning of a horror movie, honestly. I lived in a frat house once, and while it’s not the same energy, the fear of reprisal is probably something similar,” I noted. I felt Jimin’s eyes on me. I concentrated on the feeling of Yoongi’s fingers wrapped around mine instead, the breeze from the ocean tickling my neck. A saxophone started something that reeked of Christmas in July farther down the boards. 

“We’re not gonna get kicked out,” Jimin said in playfully exasperated voice. “But if I lived with Hoseok, only one of us would make it out of there, Jin,” Jimin vowed, his eyebrows raised. I could feel Yoongi watching me. It felt like a fond gaze. Was it fond? Was it anything like the way that Jungkook gazed at Jimin? 

“Fair enough,” I said with a grin, sliding off of the top of the bench, stumbling a bit over my limbs, my cruddy converse almost sending me down. “I’m good,” I laughed. Yoongi stood on the bench, and I rushed over to him and held out my arms. 

“You know I’m not little lord Fauntleroy, right?” Yoongi asked. Jimin hummed in support from beside him. 

“I’ll have you know it’s very slippery out here, Yoongi. Very. It’s actually all ice. It’s actually December. Do you hear that brassy shit?” I smiled a small smile. “Actually, all of you might be a part of a very complex delusion,” I added. Yoongi pulled me closer by my hands, securing them around his waist and slipping down my body to the ground. He kissed my neck. “Ah,” I said. “Nicely done,” I coughed. 

“So, I’m told,” he whispered. 

“Oh, look how cute. They think that’s sexy,” Jimin mocked. We looked over at Jimin. Sunglasses perched on his nose and earrings catching the sunlight couldn’t seem to clash with his snug sweater and comfortable slacks. They wouldn’t dare. “Our dating,” Jimin started. 

“By dating, he means courting.” Yoongi’s smirk was close to my mouth. 

“Do you want to hear the story, Min Yoongi? Or do you want to tell the story? Because you two’s meet cute is sub. Par.” Jimin planted his hands on his hips. 

“Come on Jin, let’s go find someone to hustle in cards or something,” Jungkook said, his eyes crinkling. 

“You!” Jimin exclaimed. “Mr. ‘oh do you think we’re gonna get kicked out?’” 

“He’s still pissed I beat the house one time…” Jungkook baited the hook as Jimin whirled on him. 

“You were distracting me!” 

“Jimin used to deal cards at Resorts International,” I explained. 

“Did Jungkook have a porn stache?” Yoongi asked. 

“Probably,” I laughed. “Me and Yoongi are taking a walk!” I shouted. 

“Come on, Jiminie, we can walk and bicker.”

“We’ve done a lot more complicated things while bickering. Unlike some people,” Jimin glared at Yoongi. Yoongi laughed, rocking back on his heels and showing his gums. 

“Who are you?!” he shouted in laughter. Jimin’s possibly carefully orchestrated? annoyance melted into a smile, and we started walking. People rushed around us as we weaved through the crowd. My phone beeped with a message, and Yoongi nudged me with an elbow. 

“Maybe it is from the home?” he leaned up and murmured in my ear. I already knew it was the home, but it just wasn’t about what Yoongi or Jimin or Jungkook thought it was. Well, maybe not Jimin. I think Jimin could’ve given a half-decent guess that would probably make me go walk into the ocean. But then again, that’s just Tuesday. 

“Yeah, maybe,” I allowed, slipping my phone out of my pocket and up to my ear, making sure it was on low volume as I tucked it against my ear. 

It was Dr. Perez: “Hi, Jin. Sorry to bother you on your day off, but I couldn’t stop thinking about our meeting this morning. Just wanted to make sure everything is okay. My friend let slip that you haven’t gotten ahold of them yet. I don’t want to make it mandatory, but maybe that would be better for you. Anyway, give them a call, and call me back sometime this week.” 

Yoongi didn’t look over at me in curiosity, or prompt me to tell him who was on the other end of the phone. I wondered if that was sincere, or if he was using some kind of reverse psychology, or if maybe I would act that way, or would I just flat out ask? Doing what people least expected all the time could make it hard to keep track of little things like that. 

“It was actually my brother,” I answered what could’ve been his unspoken question as I deleted the message and tucked my phone back into my pocket. 

“Daniel Kim? That brother?” Yoongi’s eyes were wide, and his mouth was twitching. 

“Should I be jealous that you’re fanboying over my brother?” I teased. “He said he’s coming to town soon…” 

“I know,” Yoongi said quickly. “I mean… actually, no, fuck that – I did know that and maybe I could kiss you a bit and you’d give me an early birthday gift…” His eyes sparkled. 

“I’d say I’d get you the tickets for free, but I think the kisses are a good investment,” I smirked. 

“Remember when you used to carry me like that?” I craned my neck around to see Jimin watching a couple giving a piggy back ride across the boards. 

“Jiminie, you’ll break me!” Jungkook laughed. 

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“He lies!” I couldn’t feel my fingers for a second, stomach turning inside out. “Don’t believe him!” Jungkook continued, though the tips of his ears were pink against his grey hair. 

“Don’t know if Jimin’s being honest with us, but I’ve definitely broken a man before,” I offered. 

“Yeah?” Yoongi laughed. 

“I mean, he didn’t think it was funny, but it did happen.” 

“Wait, wait, you said you haven’t seen anyone in a while…” 

“I had a very sexy teens,” I defended. 

“Here, Jimin,” Yoongi stopped and let go of my hand, bending partially over.

“I’ve already got a nice piece of ass, but thanks for the offer,” Jimin quipped.

“I’ll give you a piggy back ride, and Jin can give one to Jungkook. It’ll be cute,” Yoongi shrugged, his amused eyes darting over to me. 

“I know you said I like cute things, but I’m not sure if this is worth less than... or you could do that,” I trailed off as Jimin jumped on Yoongi’s back with an ooooph. “Alright, Jungkook?” I turned half around and quirked an eyebrow towards Jungkook. He was bent half over in laughter, waving a hand at me to stay away from him. But not knowing when to walk away is one of my strongest traits. That’s why I’ve got so many scars from high school. I wasn’t even one of those scrappy guys. Bet yoongi was one of those scrappy guys. I just kept talking until someone hit me and then kept talking. “Come on, JK.” We walked over towards a bench and Jungkook climbed onto my back.

“Scream if I hurt you,” he muttered. Jungkook was insecure about the space he took up. Though you wouldn’t be able to tell from a look at my chiseled features and cocky glint in my eye, I knew that somewhere underneath, not too deep cause I wasn’t too deep, there was that same mild fear and discomfort about too many eyes on me. 

“Hey, Jungkook?” I asked suddenly as we walked to catch up to the other pair that was actually making great time down the boardwalk. Show offs.

“Yeah?”

“How’d you perform all the time like you did?”

“A lot of people went into my character...” he trailed off. 

“You’re very introverted,” I said before huffing as I yanked him further up my back. 

“Am I?” Jungkook chuckled. “Well, it’s not exactly me when I was performing or mixing or when I take photos. But it’s also the best me. Jungkook concentrate.”

“I wonder if Yoongi feels like that when he DJs....” I trailed off as I looked down the boardwalk craning my head side to side trying to look around crowds stuffed into different tie dyes version of the same sweatshirt and teens straight out of a Jeep Cherokee ad. I bit my lip. I felt that way about Yoongi, didn’t I? Confused because I wasn’t exactly me when I held him but sure that I was who I was supposed to be when we were silent, when the secrets and the lies didn’t feel like such a big deal, such a big weight on my chest, like they didn’t exist and I was really perfect. Not just my usual perfect. But ACTUALLY half decent, half all right. 

As we neared where Yoongi and Jimin had stopped, I noticed a familiar blonde mullet buried underneath a bari sax. “Taeh!” I exclaimed and he turned half-towards me and winked. He wasn’t drunk this time or wearing something so, uh, blue velvet? But not like the mostly fucked up movie. More like... okay I was thinking about my one cousin’s sexy 70s theme bedroom. Bachelors are garbage. But on Taeh the aesthetic was charming. Today in the summer sun he was wearing denim cut offs and a white t shirt, translucent around the edges. The bottom of his hair was damp. 

Jimin slid off of Yoongi’s back. Yoongi stood straight and bent side to side. I squared so Jungkook could, uh, dismount. I mimicked Yoongi’s motions outrageously enough so that he’d turn around and look at me with a glint in his eyes, or stick his tongue out at me. But his arms were crossed and he was staring at his brother with a dumbfounded look. 

“Since when does he do that,” Yoongi muttered.

“You didn’t know he played saxophone, or that he played saxophone at the boardwalk?” I watched as a couple tossed a couple bills into Taeh’s case, sticking around to ogle his tanned thighs and the artful lines of his arms.

“Neither. I knew he wanted to learn, but... he’s a couple years younger than me, and I’ve been going through it for a decade so...”

“I don’t really know my brother either,” I admitted. Or myself, but somehow I got the feeling Yoongi and I were already on the same page about that one. “Maybe we both can reconnect...” I trailed off, watching Taeh play. “Or, I mean, me and your brother could collaborate on a song...”

“Okay, first off, musician right here,” Yoongi turned to me in a whisper. “Secondly, pick your jaw off the ground,” he nodded over towards Taeh. 

“I wasn’t,” I held my hands up in self-defense. 

“You looked like the goddamn cartoon wolf, Jin,” Yoongi said with a laugh, playfully shoving my arm. 

“I get it, I get it, short lease and all that,” I joked.

Yoongi’s face dropped, his usually open eyes guarded. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I-“

“We’ll talk about it, later,” Yoongi mumbled, turning back towards Taehyung, who was just finishing his song with warm and whimsical runs. 

“Hey guys,” Taehyung said as he stowed his saxophone. He sat back on his heels and lifted the strap over his head. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much. We broke these two out, got some lunch, and now we’re here. Christmas in July, huh?” I nodded towards his saxophone. 

“I didn’t have any lunch,” Jungkook said with a raised hand.

“Jin and Yoongi probably ate lunch before they got us,” Jimin extended his arm across Jungkook’s shoulders. His other arm remained secure on the small of my back. It’d been a long a long time since anyone had made that kind of gesture. He used to do it a lot. I wondered if Yoongi would do it, or if he’d already had and I’d been too wrapped up with trying to fall in love with him as quick as possible that I hadn’t noticed. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe if I kept going in this direction, he’d never want to touch me again. 

“Oh, nice,” Taehyung nodded. “I’m Taehyung,” he said, standing and holding his hand towards Jimin and Jungkook. They introduced themselves with the niceties that my brain usually buffered over. How are you how are you? It was never what people meant or wanted it to be. All I ever wanted was to know someone, know everything about someone while they never knew a damn thing about me. Was that creepy? I didn’t mean it creepy. 

“You’re different in daylight. Very mellow. Do you drive a van?” I asked.

“A van?” Taehyung asked. “Next thing you know you’ll be asking me if I surf, am from California, and if my real name is Sunshine,” he laughed, his mouth a square Man Ray smile. 

Jungkook laughed, his eyes darting over towards Jimin. “Once upon a time I thought the same thing about Jungkook,” Jimin said on a huff.

“Why the huff!” I asked with a laugh. 

“Because it turned out he wasn’t the mysterious west coast lover I thought he was. He was a North Jersey implant who was trying to hide behind faux chill. That was in style then, you know,” Jimin rambled. 

“Are you from California?” I asked. “Because that would be cool.”

“Jin only collects interesting people,” Yoongi noted. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said. 

“Sometimes I think that you really don’t have a choice staying with Hoseok, but then other times, I’m pretty sure you’re just like him.”

“Jin?” Jimin said quietly. 

“Hm?” I asked, turning towards Jimin. Jimin half-smiled and nodded towards Taehyung. 

“I was just saying I’m not from California.” He smiled. “But I did move here when I was younger after our parents got married.”

“Worst day of my life,” Yoongi said with a smirk, his eyes dancing. I was happy that his eyes were dancing. I wish I could stop thinking. I wish I could stop thinking even more than I already didn’t think.

“How old were you two when you became stepbrothers?” Jungkook asked. The sun was bright and blinding, reflecting off of the sand, being swallowed by the dark novelty tees with the delightfully heinous neon writing hanging across the fronts of the storefronts. My eyes got dragged out towards the ocean again. Even though the Atlantic was cold and murky, I was happy   
I’d never seen or thought about white sands. That way I couldn’t know what I was missing.

“I was thirteen and he was ten,” Yoongi said, suddenly scurrying over to grab his brother in a headlock. Taehyung squirmed out of his arms with the ease of experience, or the fact that he was kinda massive compared to Yoongi. It made me like Yoongi’s delicate but not delicateness? even more. I knew he resented that shit, anything that made him seem doll-like and breakable. I knew he was strong by the way he held my hand, and the way that he said what he was thinking after thinking things through. I was weak so I talked. He was strong so he knew when to say silent. “What?” Yoongi asked, at least some of his usual bemused tone hovering in the air as he stopped, still laughing as he pushed Taehyung away. 

“I was just thinking about how beautiful you are,” I said maybe imagining only he could hear, maybe hoping they all would hear and tell me I wasn’t crazy, that I was saying exactly what I was thinking. I hoped that he wasn’t thinking what I’d imagined he would say a couple minutes ago. Yoongi’s smile dropped and he opened his mouth to respond, but Jimin played the old man card right in time. 

“Seokjin! You invite us out, and then you fry us in the heat, and almost kill us via Tiktoker,” he complained, stepping away from me and into Jungkook, who good naturedly wrapped his arms around his fuming significant other. 

“In her defense, you did sneak up on her,” I laughed easily. I mean I didn’t know that you could laugh easily when you could barely breathe, but the human body did wonderful things. I mean, my human body could really do some wonderful things. As I’ve been trying to tell several online chat rooms for the last three years. And as I’ve been trying to untell Hoseok. 

“I’m elderly, I’m decrepit, I am fundamentally incapable of sneaking,” Jimin raised an eyebrow. 

“Maybe she was fulfilling some kind of secret quota then. Seeing how many old heads’ hips she could bust in one day?” I offered. Taehyung gave me a laugh for that one. 

“Tae, that was lame. Don’t give him that one. Come on, you’re my only hope,” Yoongi whined, his face a perfect mask of outrage. 

“You see, JK, when Yoongi and I are alone it’s all ‘oh Jin, you’re the most handsome and funniest guy I’ve ever met,’ but put his brother in the picture and it’s all…” 

“Why are you talking to me about this again?” Jungkook asked, furrowing his brow. 

“Nevermind. I was just doing the thing again,” I explained to him. 

“Ah, right, right,” he waved me off before nuzzling his head into the side of Jimin’s face.

“Ew,” I shook my head. 

“I think it’s nice,” Taehyung said, before glancing up to the sun and scrunching his nose. Was he telling the time by looking at the sun? Or was he about to accuse me of trying to melt him in the sun too? 

“Hey! Why don’t we all do dinner?” I asked suddenly. Now, there were several ways that this could go wrong. But I’m pretty sure the benefits outweighed the risk. I mean, I should know that shit, working in risk assessment for the better part of a year. Which is coincidentally a description of most of my relationships as well. “At my place,” I added for that extra dimension of danger. It was fun to play the odds. It also made me wanna puke, in other words my natural state so everything was perky in Peaksville. 

“Would Hoseok be cool with that?” Yoongi asked. His entire body was frowning. He hated Hoseok, and it seemed like my mouth wanted me to keep putting him in uncomfortable positions. 

“Okay, you’re right. I don’t want any of you to have any interact with Hoseok, but Ten’ll be there, and we could probably trick Hoseok out on errands for a good part of the night,” I offered. Did Jimin and Yoongi just share a look? A look metaphorically over my head? “Hey, hey, you’re supposed to be my Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jimin, not Yoongi’s.”   
Yoongi’s lips quirked. “No, no, Jimin’s definitely Yoda.”

“Can I be Leia?” Taehyung asked. 

“I think Jin has to be Luke. You’re both whiny babies,” Yoongi smirked. He was confusing, which is a whole ass riot coming from me. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to have control of the floor and hold court or melt into the night. Maybe I was looking at the man he used to be and the person he wanted to be.

“Unpopular opinion but Mark Hamill’s kinda hot,” I responded with a straight face. 

“You’re just saying that because I just called you Luke!” Yoongi whined, pointing at me in outrage. 

“Cute boys, real cute, but what was that about food?” Jimin asked, apparently bored with our playful bickering when it didn’t involve him. Which was typical. And relatable. 

“Okay, okay, Jiminie, I get it, no one puts Baby in a corner,” I laughed. “Let’s go.” 

We all piled in through the door to our small house. There was no sign of either of my roommates, or as Hoseok always so charming called himself, my landlord. It smelled so heavily of incense and Yankee buy one get one off candles that I started to wave my hand around to try to dissipate the smoke. Didn’t want to send either one of my parental figures into any kind of reaction. I was a nurse after all. Nearly qualified too. 

“Hoseok?” I called against my better will. We’d driven here without much of a problem. Taehyung good naturedly agreed, and even took it upon himself to text Jinyoung and invite him. That was nice. It was exactly what I would’ve done, which isn’t a good sign for Taehyung’s future prospects, but fantastic news for whether or not that friendship would survive once I completely and utterly wrecked what me and Yoongi had. But anyway, Taehyung had nodded, and enthusiastically confirmed with a “Cool, man,” promising to meet us at the car after he got changed. 

Not that I have all the answers, but I do know that those little freestanding not-as-disgusting as one would think bathroom palaces was not a good fit for that man. But regardless of whatever I could imagine, Taehyung sure enough met us at the car, impressively overdressed for what was probably gonna be a trashcan mixture of frozen food from the bottom of our undersized freezer, warm beer and wine, and whatever we could get quick takeout. He tucked the skirt of his warm yellow maxi dress under him as he slid into the back seat of Ten’s obsessively neat Prius. 

“Scuse me,” he said, after stepping on Jungkook’s foot with one wedge. We’d squeezed Jungkook in the back in the middle for comedic effect. Though he’d slimmed considerable in his old age, he was still a reformed meathead. 

“May I?” he asked Taehyung before reaching out and feeling the fabric of the dress. “Where’d you get this?” 

“I made it,” Taehyung said. “I could show you sometime if you want. I’ve still got some time left until classes start again,” he shrugged, his long earrings touching his shoulders as I whipped the car out of the parking spot. The seagulls that had dogpiled around this couple who were feeding them Chickie and Pete’s fries suddenly dispersed at the sound of the tires on the gravel, sending white shit everywhere. The couple had also sprung out of the way, of the shit, but also of my rear bumper. I didn’t actually have my driver’s license, not that that determined my driving capability, I just wanted to mention it for my reputation, you know. 

Hoseok stuck his head out of the doorway, pocking a hole in my bubble. “What?” he scowled. 

“Where’s your clothes?” I asked sweetly, batting my eyelashes. 

“I don’t know. I don’t track that shit.” 

“Too busy tracking your bookies?” Yoongi asked, his shoulder brushing mine as he moved into the small kitchen. 

“I don’t know you. Do I know you? I only remember people taller than 5 feet.” 

Ten’s voice suddenly rose from somewhere behind Hoseok. “Okay, fucker, I swear to Madonna and all that is holy that if you make one more short joke…” 

“Sometimes you like the short jokes!” Hoseok protested. 

“When my face gets red, it’s not because I’m aroused,” Ten’s half-muffled but always artfully pissed off voice replied. 

“Well, sometimes…” Hoseok trailed off, staring at the visitors that had shuffled into the room behind me. “Jimin,” Hoseok said, blinking once very precisely. 

“Dirtbag,” Jimin replied, crossing his arms. 

“This is a collective opinion that your roommate sucks,” Yoongi said, leaning with his hands against the counter. 

“We don’t need a cat, Jin, please remove that feline from my kitchen,” Hoseok said imperiously despite his nakedness and the fact that he was awkwardly hanging half out of the door. 

“You mean another cat?” Yoongi asked. 

“We don’t have a cat,” Hoseok said. 

“See! Everyone thinks we should get a cat!” Ten added. 

“Don’t start him again,” Hoseok grumbled, rubbing at his face with one hand. “Jin, remind me again why you’ve invaded my house with a couple walking skeletons, a… very beautiful person with the bone structure of a Greek God, and your pet cat?” 

“Now, I don’t know about you but Taehyung here is certainly not a walking skeleton,” Jimin said cheekily. “Because we all know when you reference a Greek God you are most certainly referring to moi.” 

“You know, I think you might have caught Jin’s God complex. I’m not sure if it’s making me like you less or more,” Hoseok noted. I looked between the two before meeting Yoongi’s eyes. His brows were furrowed. It felt like a cold spot, like that time earlier that afternoon at the Boardwalk when I knew I’d fucked up but this time I didn’t know or couldn’t remember what it was that I was supposed to say. What was I supposed to say? It was like sitting at the table and they’re making you swallow the last few bites even though all the food on your plate is your brother’s. I’m not sure if I’ve lived that or heard that story a thousand times. 

There was a brisk knock on the door. “Ah, Mr. Efficiency himself!” I greeted Jinyoung as I opened the door, stepping aside so that his nicely proportioned bad ole self could fill the small living room. There was now a lot of grown ass men in the house. That’s counting all of us, though I’m sure I could’ve talked my way into a Happy Meal for myself. 

“I’d say more than efficient,” Jinyoung nodded good naturedly, half of his mouth creeping into a smile. 

“Are you an actor?” Hoseok shouted at him abrasively. 

“The bags under my eyes tell me I’m almost a doctor,” he replied. 

“Close enough,” Hoseok smirked. 

“Uh-uh, no way. Jinyoung doesn’t have time for that, Hoseok,” I rambled, stepping in front of Jinyoung. 

“Have time for what?” Jinyoung asked curiously.

“I’m a director. If you’re looking for a few extra bucks to pay those medical school bills, just give me a call,” Hoseok purred before pursing his lips. 

“I’m… going to ignore that,” Jinyoung said slowly. Which was the best decision for all of us, although I still maintain that Hoseok and Jinyoung could hit it off. “Should I have picked up food or something?” Jinyoung asked, looking around at the group: two sunburnt elderly folks who were engaged in a PDA fest way too intense for the sanctity of my corneas and the last bits of my imagination (rest in pieces); a half-dressed Hoseok who was slimily propositioning even as his other (better, really how many do I have to say better) half dexterously insulted him from somewhere inside that surely beach themed bedroom; one gorgeously overdressed magic man; one love child of Shaggy Rogers and Ken whatever the doll’s last name is, and of course, one confused Min Yoongi whose level eyes made me want to run away. It was gonna be one hell of a party. 

“Okay!” I said, clapping my hands. Jinyoung’s eyes shifted over to me before moving towards Taehyung. Taehyung shrugged and half-smiled at Jinyoung’s unspoken question, which if I know anything about people (and I don’t) had to be something like why the hell did you invite me? “So, pretty sure I buried a keg in the backyard when I was sixteen, who wants to help me find it?” My face broke out into a smile. 

Ten pushed past Hoseok and into the room. “First off, Jin, wrong,” he pointed at me. “Second, it’s last minute so it won’t be my best, but if anyone can pull off this shit show, it’s me.” Ten cracked his fingers and his neck. 

Hoseok groaned from behind him. “Why do you make everything about you?” 

“I learned from you, babe,” Ten called over his shoulder before turning towards me and smiling. He cocked his head at me. It was not a fun smile. But while his smile said I’m about to, as usual, kill Hoseok, or maybe go run to the Wawa and never come back, his eyes were warm. He loved a challenge. I was a challenge. “Everyone knows Jackson Wang can throw a party. But they’ve obviously never met me.” 

“Who’s Jackson Wang?” Yoongi frowned. 

“Yoongi,” Taehyung said, shocked. “Jackson Wang’s parties are legendary. It’s said all of the best parties on every college campus are offshoots of his original party.” 

“Ignore him, please,” Yoongi said with a laugh. “He spends all of his spare time on Reddit.” 

“No, no,” I jumped in, slinging my arm around Jinyoung, whose shoulders were rock hard for one. Also, he shot me a dirty look. Also, Yoongi shot me a confused look. I hoped I was being disarming, though as usual I wasn’t quite sure who or what situation I was trying to disarm. All of them if I could. “Taehyung’s right, Yoongi. I heard they spread from the West Coast originally. Or even from across the whole goddamn ocean.” My eyes were wide. I had the room. Taehyung and I had the room. 

“Yeah, yeah, and that even though the original one in the speakeasy got raided, everyone went forth from there and held a party in his honor,” Taehyung said loudly before laughing. 

“I was there,” Jungkook added as Jimin shot him a dirty look. The room was a wildfire, and it was like a thousand screenplays had thrown up, discarded paper guts filling the little space in between all of us, and it was like our thoughts became words became sentences between a plot, and if that was the case, then why was Min Yoongi still all the way across the room from me with his arms crossed and his eyes unamused every time I spoke? I wanted to be the Fun Guy for him, wanted to make large all-encompassing gestures for him, wanted to serenade him from the bleachers but every time I spoke the floor got wider and wider. I watched as the floor stretched like taffy, black and white squares. Jungkook tried to teach me chess, hadn’t he? But he couldn’t remember the rules and I made them up as I went, a new rule to follow and forget every day. 

Jinyoung of all people brought me back from where I must’ve been staring off in Yoongi’s direction with what I hoped wasn’t the look of disgust I usually reserved for myself. He relaxed under my arm and slung his arm around my waist. “Come on, I’ll help you dig for the keg if you want,” he joked. 

“Or we can just raid Hoseok’s stash of red wine he keeps under the bed,” I shrugged. 

“Whatever works.”


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get uncomfortable at the dinner, with everyone saying more than they usually do/ should (which they already do a lot, really). Jimin speaks Jin's truth and lends a shoulder to lean (and cry) on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, drop me a comment below! I'd love to hear what you think! :)

There wasn’t a keg buried in the backyard under the broken shell lawn, of course. But there was a picnic table in the back of the tiny house that Hoseok had gotten in some card game at a place that I imagined looked the same way as when Jimin and Jungkook had met and fallen in love. We all sat back there, and the sun set and the moon rose and it was a clear beautiful night. 

Or, alternately, we’d gotten eaten up by green heads and mosquitoes until dusk came and as the sun set, it began to rain. We ran inside, leaving most of the takeout containers and bowls of random frozen food I’d used to implode the microwave out in the rain. They filled until they overflowed. I would know. I watched them over Yoongi’s shoulder through the window that Ten obsessively cleaned twice a day. None of us really knew what to talk about at first. It was every young adult’s worst nightmare, other than making appointments or ordering food over the phone. So, we solved it like all the other socially-acceptable alcoholics. We drank, and the more we drank, the more selfish we got. It was a reversion to childhood, really. The stories got longer, and more intricate – or was that all on my part? 

Of course, I shouldn’t say we all got more selfish, but more honest about the way we looked on the inside (big laugh there). Which is all a big convoluted way to say that Taehyung and Jinyoung got cooler, Jikook fell more in love, and Hoseok got even more trashier. “So, how’d you guys meet?” Taehyung asked Jikook, sipping his glass of wine. His rings glinted in the flickering light over the table. Jinyoung and Yoongi had hefted the couch into the kitchen area so that we could all sit together. 

“Maybe you should tell it,” Jungkook said with a smile, nudging Jimin with his shoulder. 

“I’m pretty tipsy, Kook. Maybe I shouldn’t,” Jimin said, waving his hand. 

“Yeah, I think Jungkook should tell it,” Yoongi baited him. “Jungkook tells it better.” Jimin blinked at him. 

“You’ve never even…” Jimin stopped, an impish smile spreading across his face. “You know what, I’m gonna tell it, but it’s not because you’re challenging me. You’ll know better when you grow into wearing long pants.” Yoongi poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek. He lifted his hands in surrender and gestured at Jimin to continue. “Okay, so I was dealing cards at the Resort International. It’d just opened, but I’d been kicking around AC for years beforehand. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of him, with his long hair – of course, that was the fashion, but I always kept me hair short – but he always kept it a little over his eyes. But I’m not going to lie to you, I fell in love immediately, and showed it too,” Jimin nodded. 

“Jiminie, you tried to get me fired,” Jungkook interrupted. 

“Well, I figured they wanted the Cliff Notes version,” Jimin muttered. 

“What the hell’s a Cliff Notes?” Taehyung asked, wrinkling his nose and draining his wine glass. Hoseok quickly took the glass and filled it, Taehyung nodded and Ten kicked me under the table. His eyes, which I swear were calm and even a little fond earlier, looked like one of the circles of hell surely looked like. This was usually the look he gave right before he suggested we go do pickle backs, throw axes, and max out Hoseok’s credit card at Hollister and Steve’s Grilled Cheese. 

“Nevermind the Cliff Notes, then,” Jimin huffed, pulling his sweater closer around him. “Fine, I tried to get him fired, but it’s because he cheated at cards. It had nothing to do with his singing ability, although really Jungkook, you thought you were Frank fucking Sinatra and it just wasn’t true,” Jimin turned towards him with wide eyes. 

“I wasn’t trying to be Frank Sinatra…” Jungkook said easily and good naturedly. 

“Okay, well, whatever. But you did cheat, and it made me look bad in front of regulars. Sharon barely let me live it down, let alone Johnny…” Jimin trailed off. 

“Oh, that’s right! Jimin introduced me to Johnny. We used to have some wild jam sessions at this place out in the desert,” Jungkook started.

“I’m not sure about that, Jungkook. Unless you guys were the Rolling Stones?” I prompted him, nudging him gently with my elbow. 

“Oh, well, Jimin did introduce me to Johnny.” Jungkook raised a pointed finger. “And we did have some wild producing sessions.” 

“That’s right, babe,” Jimin said, squeezing his hand before whipping around towards me. “I love you like a fucking son, Seokjin, but seriously your hypocrisy is flaming right now,” Jimin said loudly. 

“What do you mean?” I asked. Was I a little too loud too? We were probably all shouting, but too busy falling to notice. And Jungkook, the only sober one, was kinda hard of hearing so he couldn’t notice our raised voices anyway. 

“You know what I mean,” Jimin raised his eyebrows. “You need to stop correcting him on things he doesn’t remember right.” “It’s my job, Jimin, he just needs a nudge. You know that,” I explained. Maybe I’d overstepped. Not in correcting Jungkook, but in bringing them out, and getting close to them, especially Jimin. I should’ve stayed away, but I didn’t think it would matter because I didn’t think that Jimin was someone I could hurt. 

“Okay, well, next time you need a nudge I’ll be sure to provide one,” he snapped, and my neck and my ears burned. 

I opened my mouth to respond, but Ten’s voice came out instead of my own. “That’s enough! Do you ever get off?” 

“I get off all the time, babe. Like just a few hours ago. I think you should know that,” Hoseok quipped, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of his beer. I watched over Yoongi’s head out the window, and the rain had stopped. 

“Oh, I know it, Hoseok, I know it. But every single fucking time there’s anyone in the near vicinity, you have to get in their pants, or make them your thing. If the first one doesn’t work, then you go right towards collecting things,” Ten spat. Was I the same way? Did I really collect interesting people, or was that just the fucked-up part of my head putting lies in Yoongi’s mouth earlier today at the boardwalk? Then again, someone told me once that all of the lies came from somewhere. 

“Hey, calm down, guys, okay? Why don’t we just listen to the rest of Jimin’s story? I think it gets good. And if it doesn’t, then I’m sure Taehyung has an interesting story. He’s from California, you know,” I babbled. 

“Oh, would you quit fixating on Taehyung to cover up the way you can’t seem to make it work with Yoongi,” Jinyoung jumped in. “I wish you’d stop fucking with him, if I’m being honest,” he continued. 

“What?” Me and Yoongi said in unison. We made eye contact then for the first time that night. I looked away. 

“I’m gonna have to agree with Mr. Buff Doctor Guy,” Hoseok added. “We all know how well Jin does in relationships,” Hoseok spread his hands in front of him as if to say, yep, that’s how it is. That was how it was. 

“Oh, would you quit psycholoanalyzing Jin. Because you did the same goddamn thing to him,” Ten nodded. “Tried to fuck him, and when that didn’t work, you blackmailed him into becoming your pet. I’m almost happy you fucked me so then at least I have some autonomy,” Ten continued, his eyes flashing. At this point, both him and Hoseok were standing. 

“First off, Jin and I were never like that. Second of all, is that really all we are? Because then you should just leave,” Hoseok spat at him. They’d done this a thousand times before, though judging by Jinyoung’s expression, apparently it looked serious. 

Yoongi stood up then, and he was the pissed I’d ever seen him. His poker face was still mostly in place, a carefully crafted mask of neutrality. His eyes were cold as his chair scooched back on the tile and slid a little bit. Ice skating. I’d gone on a date ice skating once, and we’d shared a hot chocolate, and by the time we kissed I couldn’t feel anything on my tongue. “I know – and I don’t even know you – I know you treat Jin like a pet. You guys apparently don’t have a cat, but you obviously already feel like you have Jin for that,” his voice, in intentional contrast with Hoseok and Ten’s raised voices, was steady and low. 

Hoseok turned towards him, putting his hands on his hips. “No, you really don’t know me, and you don’t know Jin, so…”

“Will you please shut the fuck up?” I asked calmly. “I’m gonna go get the dishes from outside. I think it’s stopped raining.” 

“Oh, sure, run away, that’s all you do,” Hoseok said, blinking fast. 

“Okay, well, I was gonna have to kick your ass if you continued Hobi cause you were about to threaten Yoongi, and he gave me his little handkerchief once to tie to my jousting pole and so now I’m indebted to him. I’d have to defend his honor.” I saw Yoongi put his hand in front of his face and turn around as he laughed. My work here was done. “Are we done now? Cause it’s honestly a lot. This isn’t Gilmore Girls, man,” I shook my head, grinning now. 

“Humor’s not gonna fix your fucking life, Jin,” Hoseok said in a low voice as he pushed past me and out the front door. 

Taehyung stood up as Ten sat down. His blonde mullet caught the light of the yellow and red light-fixture that I’d lifted from my Grandmother’s basement quite nicely. He drained his wine glass. “Have I ever told you guys about the time I joined a Jersey Devil cult?” 

I let my legs and arms hang through the wooden slats, gravity pulling me against them. It smelled like salt, of course, and something sweeter. The wine bottle was loose in my hand. My ass was soaked through. I had no idea how I was gonna get Jikook back to the home. They’d probably be considered missing. Marley’ll probably call the cops, especially since I hadn’t signed them out or anything. I was pretty sure Hoseok and Ten were broken up, actually this time, and I wondered distantly, like some little kid, which one of them would want me. I really was the cat. 

“Can I sit?” Yoongi asked, I looked up towards him, swaying a little. There was a nice breeze up here. 

“Sure,” I turned away and tried to find the line of the ocean. But there wasn’t much of a view, and all I could see was the condominiums that they’d set against the ocean a couple of years ago. People came here for sun and sand and all they got was concrete and neatly manicured lawns. 

“Were you planning on looking at me tonight, Jin?” his voice was teasing. 

“I’m not sure. I haven’t made me mind up yet.” 

“I’m sorry I treated you like an object even when I was defending you from being an object…” Yoongi trailed off. I sat up, taking my head off of the wood. “You’ve got a line on your face now,” Yoongi reached out and ran his hand across my face before dropping it awkwardly. “How long have you been up here?” he frowned. “I looked over and you were gone.” 

“Not sure. I’m a lot drunker than I wanted to be. But then again, I’m pretty sure we’re all a lot drunker than we should’ve been.” I stared at his lips before peering out through the bars again. “Yoongi, what do you think about when you see the ocean, or when you drive around and see the concrete buildings painted pink and white and blue?” I could feel him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. Was he shaking his head at me, or at himself, or was he answering the question? “My dad used to paint houses. And my dad’s dad too. So, I think about them, and I consider some complex cliches about manhood. You should’ve been there,” I said absently. 

“I thought you didn’t think,” he teased, his voice a low rumble. “Thought you were a Man of Action, not an Idea Man.” 

I turned around towards him. “No, you’re right. I don’t think, really,” I said with a grin. He shoved me in the chest playfully. You see, Kim Seokjin didn’t think. He created. He crafted. My dad probably could’ve been proud of me to see all the construction and demolition I’d done with just these two hands.

His hand was still on my chest and he slid it up to loosely grasp my neck as he leaned forward to kiss me, his other hand reaching to touch my stomach under my sweatshirt. I pulled away. “Sorry,” he said, dropping his hands. 

“I’m just not feeling very sexy. You know, you’re a pretty sexy guy, Yoongi.” 

“Yeah?” he laughed, accepting the wine when I held it out to him. He sipped from the bottle, wiping the red wine off his mouth with his forearm. “Jin,” he started. Uh, oh, Seokjin, it was a patented serious voice. Everyone had it. The switching gears. The son, we have bad news. The son, we have no news is better than good news. “I know you have a thing where you say things you don’t mean. Whether you say it to be funny, I mean, I don’t… Jin…. Hey,” he laughed, reaching out to grab my hand when I’d gotten up to go back downstairs. I don’t remember standing, but hell if it was good for the me of five seconds ago it was probably good for the me of now. “I just wanted to say that whatever it is, it’s okay. Okay?” he raised his eyebrows a bit. 

“I’m sorry I was a dick earlier. With the thing about the tight lease,” I said, sitting down cross-legged, still holding his hand. 

“I overreacted,” he shrugged. “Sometimes I put my personal shit on you.” 

“I knew that you had a thing with Jinyoung, and I think I should’ve connected things, but I’m kinda obsessed with being no thought guy that my empathy’s all fucked up,” I said matter-of-factly. Just me and Yoongi and the moon. Isn’t that what I’d wanted? His hand was warm in mine. 

“I mean, you still don’t know any details. I’ve been very Riddler about the whole Yoonyoung thing,” Yoongi said. He suddenly laughed. “I can’t believe I just said that. Look what you’ve done to me, Jin. Almost made an honest man out of me.” My smile faded. He squeezed my hand before crossing his legs to match mine. Our knees were touching, like… was it only yesterday morning? When we’d sat on his couch, no puke stain in sight, and I’d leaned in and kissed him? I was a new person every day. How could I be anything to him if even I couldn’t find what frequency my pulse was at when I woke up in the morning? “Do you remember that thing you said to me last night? Could you say it again, Jin? Even though it’s a little fast and I’m a little drunk and –” I kinda tackled him then, and it wasn’t nearly as playful as I wanted it to be, and maybe a little desperate, but I wanted to feel his heartbeat through our clothes, and figure out the pattern of today’s heart and match it to his. 

We lay on our sides and our legs were all tangled, his head smushed against my chest. “You don’t know how bad I want to fall in love with you,” I whispered. 

“If you let me, I’ll let you,” he murmured. I could feel his hands tangled in my sweatshirt. 

“I promise,” I said as I watched the new construction block out the shape of the sea and the damp soaked through our clothes. You see, that promise didn’t even sound like the truth to me. 

“I’m sorry, Jinnie,” Jimin said quietly, his cup of coffee untouched. Jungkook was napping peacefully in the other armchair. I sipped my coffee from my position on the floor leaning my back against JK’s chair next to his legs. I looked out the window. Not the worst view. Should I watch A Room with a View? It’d cleaned up at the Oscars, but then again that didn’t say jack shit. Guess it depended on how sad and Edwardian I was feeling. 

“It’s okay. It wasn’t a big deal.” 

“No. I knew something and I almost spilled shit that wasn’t mine to spill,” Jimin scowled at himself comically before setting into me with one of his patented gazes again. 

“I know you think you’ve got your finger on the drama pulse of this town, I’m gonna break it to you slowly, but this town has moved on,” I said quietly to the window. It was opened just a crack. Just enough for the salt air to sneak in, and maybe, after a few decades, it would break down the heinous white furniture and decorations and make this room something tasteful. 

“You know, Jin, I think Yoongi’s doing something to you,” Jimin replied. I could hear his bemused expression. 

“Wait, what were you going to spill?” I asked suddenly, looking up towards him. It was always like this for me. If someone said it, it’d be easier for me to remember. If someone else said it multiple times, then it would be easier to remember, and forget, and be reminded a thousand times. Only one person had ever really known, enough to give it a name and send it to school and burn down the house while it was away. 

Jimin’s brows furrowed before he sighed. “You’ve got a problem, Jin. You lie. And sometimes you don’t know you lie, but you lie and you make stories, fantastic stories, by the way,” Jimin raised an eyebrow. 

“Are you going to scold me?” I asked, my voice both raising and breaking a bit. I looked up towards Jungkook. I shook my head at myself and scrubbed a hand across my mouth before clutching my coffee cup closer. 

“Of course, I’m not going to scold you,” Jimin said, surprised. 

“You don’t think it’s careless of me? To play with Min Yoongi, to surround myself with interesting people so that when I’m the most popular person at the party, I can feel extra good about myself?” I was being a brat, and I knew it, but like most things, I was determined to crash into things on my way out. Out with a bang, out with a bang, ladies and germs. 

“Are you fucking with Yoongi? Because yeah, you’re shitty if you’re intentionally leading him on and lying about your feelings.” I nodded. 

“It was just so easy. He made it so easy, and I guess I took what I get and gave it to him. Like Hoseok does to me,” I said, staring out the window. 

“Is that true?” Jimin asked softly. 

“Not sure. Does it matter?” I asked, with a hollow shrug. My bones felt loose. I wondered what was in this coffee. It’d been a week, or two weeks? Since I’d met him. 

“I think it does.” 

“Okay, so I’m lying to you. I’m lying to myself. I’m lying to him.” My voice raised again and I forced it back down, sipping my coffee. I turned towards him suddenly, spilling the coffee a bit on my jean shorts. “And the worst part is that he thinks he knows something, but I’m sure as shit he doesn’t know know, you know?” Jimin grunted in response before sliding himself down onto the floor next to me. I laughed even though my voice was a little thick. “Jimin, I think you’re gonna break your hip. And I’m totally telling you I told you so…” 

Jimin tried to wrap his arms around me and I squirmed away, bumping into Jungkook’s legs. “Hey, not the new leg. I’ve still got a couple hundred miles left before trade in,” Jungkook mumbled sleepily.

“Look what you did, Seokjin!” Jimin exclaimed, raising his eyebrows. 

“Are you joking? I was the sad one here,” I said loudly, but my voice wasn’t nearly as frantic and end of my rope-y like I had planned it to be. I was gonna buy a corset and a bustle I think, and stand on the roof of some old mansion. Very Mrs. Rochester. I think I would definitely be the mad ex-wife hidden in the attic. Jimin tugged on my sleeve until I set my coffee down with a dramatic sigh and let him put his arms around me, resting his wrinkled face against my hair. I patted his back awkwardly. I didn’t hug a lot. Maybe that was why I was always pouncing on Yoongi. Unless that was just because it was Yoongi? Before, it was a whole lot of casual sex, no cuddling afterwards, just down to business. It was neater that way.  
Jimin pulled away. “I’m sorry, I should have asked first.” 

“Nah,” I waved him away. “You’re like my grandfather, and grandparents never, ever ask permission.” Although I did get along a hell of a lot better with my grandparents. My parents never asked permission for things either. His heavy brown eyes were serious. He nodded, and I could see his cheeks flushing. “I know I’m ridiculously handsome, but you are a happily married man, Jimin,” I teased him. 

“Oh, shut up!” he turned on me. He held a finger out before realizing what he was doing and lowering it. “I’ve never had a child, and I mean, I wanted…” he stopped, and I realized Jimin was getting choked up, glancing between where Jungkook had drifted back into a deep sleep in a puddle of sunlight, and me. “Well, you know that was never an option. But I’m just happy to know you is all, and the last thing I want to do is hurt you,” he said softly. 

I laughed. “Jimin, you should know by now that I am certifiably indestructible. Right there on my birth certificate. No handle with care for me. I used to get thrown down the stairs like goddamn Buster Keaton. Wanna see my driver’s license for proof?” I blabbered, my eyes sparkling. 

Jimin shook his head a bit before glancing around the surrounding floor with a thoughtful expression. “I tried to make a noble gesture, but now I need help up. Don’t say a word, Jin, not a word,” Jimin threatened, his raised finger making a reappearance. 

“Never,” I laughed.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten and Jin go to the capitalist cess pit, THE MALL. Yoongi and Jin talk about the logistics of love and falling in love, lying together on what surely can't be comfortable (the seashell lawn)...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: chapter contains more much needed jokes at Riverdale's expense

Ten wanted to snag those Christmas in July sales, so obviously we made a pilgrimage to The Mall. It was the place where everything happened. It was the only place where pre-teens could congregate in the winter. The Mall was a social experiment, a capitalist cess pit. It was perfect for us, us meaning me and Ten and Hoseok.

Growing up with Hoseok, we’d spent most of our free time at the mall. Holding walls up with our ragged converse, rolling the denim cuffs of our jeans, slicking our hair back... okay, maybe even I know where my life ends and Grease begins. It definitely wasn’t emo enough to be The Outsiders. But regardless, I did go swimming in the fountain once. Luckily, I’ve grown into my awkward phase now and so there was no chance any old shit proprietors would recognize me. Besides, the stores had all changed around. “Kids just have no class these days,” I sighed, raising an eyebrow as we passed an Aéropostale. 

“Jin,” Ten said, pulling the straw out of his mouth. His lips and teeth were blue from his slushie. “You’re like… twenty-five? I think? But whatever. I know your life is a movie, but seriously, you really don’t need to include this place in your exposition.” 

“It is a part of my exposition. Unfortunately, it’s a vital part of my origin story. I got my first hickey in the food court bathrooms,” I whined. “Also, what the fuck are they playing?” I looked around for the hidden speakers. It was some kind of club remix of the Grinch theme. 

“What are you talking about? This is perfect for you. I caught you playing electronic polka music in the shower last week.” Ten sipped his drink.

“Don’t spread rumors about me, Ten. I’ve already got that covered.” 

“Okay, like the only one you talk to is Yoongi, and A. he knows you’re garbage, and B. I’m pretty sure he’s playing this at his club as we speak,” Ten replied, sliding his sunglasses up his face. He especially wore them to the mall so he could slide them down and leer at people as they passed. 

“You really think so?” I asked cheerily. Mention of Yoongi had that effect on me. Usually. Okay, well, I guess it was fifty-fifty. I’d never admit it, but a lot of the times when I was with him all I could think about was how he’d leave and never want to see me ever again. Like total Dear John letter the fuck out of me in some Christmas themed card with the red envelope and maybe a dolphin with a holiday bow? “Can I have a sip?” 

Ten quickly drained his drink. “Sorry, you should’ve asked earlier.” 

“Okay. I’ve decided I’m picking Hoseok to live with,” I replied, shoving my hands in the pocket of my sweatshirt. 

“We should get you a new wardrobe, Jinnie, come on, we’ll make you hot, then you can surprise Yoongi at work, and then, you can do it in the bathroom, or the alleyway. Players choice.”

I stopped walking and Ten turned around and looked over his shoulder. “What?” 

“You deflected. Major. I made a sloppy joke to lure you into talking about your fight with Hoseok, and instead you retreated to the ole Jin you’ve got a hot face but you dress like a semi-retired clown on a permanent acid trip,” I said, widening my eyes. 

Ten turned away from me, throwing his cup in the trash. He walked back towards me, slipping his glasses off and tucking them into the collar of his button-down. His shirt looked like Eric Carle hurled after one too many appletinis. “Is a ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ gonna get me out of this one?” he asked. 

“Of course, it would. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I really try not to make people uncomfortable. The rest is just the side effect of standing within five feet of me,” I joked, my smile fading. I slipped my arm over his shoulders. “Come on, let’s go get me a new wardrobe, or at least try a lot of shit on until we get kicked out.” 

Ten hesitated, looking down before smiling and looping his arm around my waist. “Okay, killer. You’re gonna look hot when we’re down. Swear it,” he vowed as we waddled over to the nearest store. 

“You can’t improve perfection.” Ten spent the next twenty minutes marching me around the store and holding things in front of me. “You know, this could be good for next week. We’re going to my brother’s concert,” I said absently. “Yoongi promised me a kiss if I got him tickets,” I explained. 

“Huh?” Ten asked before sliding his phone out of his pocket. “Oh, wait, wait, smile,” he said. 

“What?” 

“No, here, hold both of these in front of you and smile, asshole,” he snapped, his eyes concentrating on his phone as his fingers flew over the keyboard, his tongue sticking out a bit. I did as he said, like I usually do I guess, and he snapped the photo.

“Who-” I started. 

“Jinyoung.” 

“Jinyoung?” I exclaimed, my mouth dropping open a bit.

“Mmmmhm, I’m infiltrating. Now, come on, go try that shit on. Jinyoung said the black shirt,” he said quickly. “Don’t give me that look,” he laughed. “Look at what you’re wearing, and now look at what I’m wearing, and tell me which one of us has any rights in this situation.” 

“I look cute,” I grumbled as he shoved me in the fitting room and snapped the curtain shut. I sighed at myself in the mirrors before looking away and concentrating on the clothes. “So, I guess the real question isn’t what you or I are wearing, but what’s Jinyoung wearing?” I shouted. 

“Shut up, the ears have walls.” 

I laughed. “What, Hoseok’s spies?” Ten ripped open the curtain with a hand on his hip and his eyes wide. I yanked my shirt closed. “The fuck, Ten.” 

“You’ve lived with him for a while, you know how it is. You take a shit at a restaurant on the other side of the island, and five minutes later he texts you that your soup’s getting cold.” His mouth was a straight line. 

“Did that really…” 

“Of course not. He’s a freak, but I would’ve have put up with him for that long if he was that much of a freak.” Ten took a step towards me, his fingers darting out to button my shirt. I backed up and bumped against the mirror. “Sorry,” he muttered before turning away and retreating back outside the changing room. 

“Are you gonna tell me about why Yoongi’s roommate, and ex, is one of your Snapchat best friends?” 

“Well, I asked him the other night for his number, you know, after Hoseok stormed out. Contingency plan.” 

“Contingency plan, infiltration plan. What’s really going on? Or is this just a sex thing, because man I get it, Jinyoung’s got Greek God proportions…” I flicked open the curtain. “I don’t know about this. It’s kinda boring, don’t you think? Also, it’s a little too much for a concert…” I trailed off, staring at Ten staring at me. “What?” 

“You look really good,” he nodded. “You look like… Tony Spark.” 

“Tony Stark?” 

“That’s what I said. Tony Stark,” he said impatiently as he tugged my hand and threw me in front of the mirror. It was just a black suit with a black shirt.

“You know I have nice clothes already. I wore my best look to the club last week,” I said with raised eyebrows, but Ten was ignoring me, too busy licking his hand and messing with my hair. 

“Ew, Mom spit,” I yelled, dodging his hand. 

“Sit still. Push your hair off your forehead.” His eyes were goddamn lasers. You know, maybe I just had a thing about eye contact? But then I knew Yoongi had a thing about eye contact, so I’m not sure if I was stealing, or if there was some deeply rooted reason why people felt like lasers to me? I tried not to meet my own eyes too, that shit was heavy. He stepped out of the way. 

“Now, you can brag about your looks.” I looked goddamn tired. 

“You know, you’re right. You’re also wrong, though, Ten, this isn’t my best look. My best look needs no clothes.” 

“Okay, well, that’s something God’s gonna spare me from so,” he laughed. He grew serious as he met my eyes in the mirror. “I think Hoseok’s really fucked us up this time, Jin.” 

“What?” I frowned. 

“He’s always told me things before. Like, I knew he was having a lot of random sex, and I mean, yeah, same,” he laughed. “But now, he doesn’t tell me about it, which is number one shitty for STDs and stuff, but also, he smiles at his phone a lot, and then sometimes, I hear him crying in the bathroom,” Ten trailed off, gauging my reaction in the mirror. 

I pulled away from him. “So, what? You’re gonna leave him cause he’s going through it. That’s pretty fucked up, Ten,” I snapped. 

“Woah. I’m just sharing. I didn’t have to.” 

“I wish you hadn’t,” I lied. 

Ten shook his head, his mouth quirking into a strange smile. “I just don’t get it. He’s a major dickhead. Why are you defending him?” 

“I know what it’s like to be lonely, Ten,” I said. “And going through it,” I added before turning away to go get changed. 

“You know why I asked for Jinyoung’s number? I figured if he was busy talking to me, he wouldn’t try to fuck things up for you and Yoongi,” Ten said, looking me in the eye when I glanced over my shoulder. It really was self-aware hours today. I was going to have to sleep for a week, but that was okay. There really wasn’t anything better for me. 

"I trust him, Ten.” I trust easy, easier, easiest, or at least I think I do. 

Ten shot me a look that let me know he thought he was decades older than me in the heartbreak department. “It’s not him I’m worried about.” 

I was elbow deep in some petunias when I heard a low voice rumble from behind me. “I brought bagels.” 

“Oh, hey,” I said casually, though in true romantic fashion my heartbeat skipped a beat over the water, grabbed some fish and chips in England, then came back via JFK airport. “Who gave you permission to cross the threshold into the house?” I tried to wipe the sweat off of my forehead with my wrist but ended up spilling dirt down my face. I spluttered. 

“Permission to enter? What kind of Yoongi Cullen shit is that?” he laughed. He set the bagels down on the picnic table and came over to where I was crouching in the shell lawn. “Didn’t see this out here last week.” He set a hand on the top of my head and leaned his weight on one leg. “You didn’t tell me you like you to garden,” he smiled softly on one side of his mouth. I looked back towards the small sad garden bed. “Who taught you?” 

“I love it,” I nodded. “Hoseok, actually. I know that sounds weird, but he used to be a lot different…” I trailed off, internally smiling when I could just sense Yoongi’s cringe at Hoseok’s name. “But I love your hair,” I said. It was pinky orange, and I remember telling… who did I tell? I remember telling someone a story once about a boy who wore my colors and then I had to no choice but to go to battle for him. Or maybe I’d just watched A Princess Bride one too many times? 

“Yeah,” he looked up and ran his hand through it. “Bad day for it. I’m gonna be sweating pink.” 

“Really?” My eyes grew wide and I plopped back on my butt. “Maybe you could do that to me. I dye my hair anyway. Or, correction, Ten dyes me hair. Which is apparently gonna be kind of weird now…” I trailed off, staring past Yoongi’s legs. He plopped onto the rough lawn and folded his legs cross-legged. That was one of our things. It was undoubtably everyone’s thing, but we couldn’t exactly have a song, could we?

“How are they?” Yoongi asked cautiously, reaching out and picking at the hole in my jeans. 

I shrugged. “Ten sleeps in my bed, and I sleep on the couch these days.” 

“What?” Yoongi looked up towards me, his mouth quirking into a question. 

“Well, number one he would’ve bitched about it excessively. Then, I like the couch. If I quirk my neck to the point where it’s just slightly uncomfortable, I’ll wake up with the best neck cramp. It’s orgasmic, really. Plus, that way I can watch whatever the neighbors are watching on tv.” 

“Very skilled,” Yoongi nodded in appreciation. 

“Did you know that Ten and Jinyoung are texting?” I asked absently. I’d been fixating on that. In a kinky way, but also because it was a great way of avoiding considering the things me and Jimin had talked about, or that number on that sheet of planner paper that’d probably been washed into a million little bits in the pocket of my favorite scrubs and was now disintegrating on a beach somewhere, waving to my heartbeat as it skipped across the – “We should have a song, Yoongi.” 

“Wait, wait, they’re texting. Wow,” he nodded in appreciation. “I like Ten, I do. Then we could go… okay, nevermind, please kill me if I ever even think the words ‘double date,’” he laughed. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll stake you, babe,” I winked badly at him.

“Okay, do you have nothing but Mountain Dew Code Red and Buffy references running through your veins?” 

“Thank you for taking back that Twilight reference. I have taste.” 

“No, I think you’re just stuck in 1997. Grey hair and everything. What an old man,” he raised an eyebrow at me. 

“Me? You were immediately Jimin’s best friend, and you literally sleep all the time.” 

“Hey! It is nine A.M. right now and I showed up at your door like goddamn Red Riding Hood. I even walked through Hoseok’s fucking forest!” he shouted, a hand to his chest in mock offense. I raised my hands in defeat. I couldn’t stop giggling, like there was this string in my chest you know, and I was walking it like a tight rope but the whole situation was so ridiculous, me of all people walking a tightrope when I usually say whatever the fuck I want in a charming way so people don’t get too offended, unless, of course that’s the goal. That’s usually the goal. But the point was, only Yoongi was holding the rope taut, and if he let go, it was gonna get a whole hell of a lot harder. 

I knew, rationally, that kind of dependency was fucked. That I would have to ahem, grow up, be a man, look myself in the eye in the mirror, wear a nice fitting suit, take him to a nice dinner, pay taxes, and…. Sorry, too Trainspotting? Scotland was shite; New Jersey was shit.

I was yanked back into reality when Yoongi touched my face. His fingers were wet, and for a second, I thought maybe I had been crying? That would’ve been interesting, but no, he had the watering can and he was pouring it on his hand and swiping at my face. “You good, Yoongi?” I laughed. 

“Your face is dirty and I thought that this would be romantic. Is it?” he teased.

“Are you making fun of me?” I whined. 

“No, no, I’m seriously not.” He flicked water at me, and so I took the watering can and held it over his head. 

“Grumpy cat,” I nodded at him with a smirk as he spluttered. He got up without a word and walked up the yard. Now that was very Seokjin of him. He really was taking notes. I turned back towards the garden and laid on my stomach, peering at the flowers. I rested my head on my folded hands. Ants-eye view. I really took up so much space sometimes. Didn’t know where to put myself. “Hey, Yoongi,” I called, looking up at the sound of his feet cronching the shells. He had the hose in his hand. “Okay, so that explains the slithering sound. Kinda hoped we were in the second Harry Potter and sexy Tom Riddle was about... about to… Yoongi, I hope you’re planning on watering these sad flowers and not this sad man.” I stood up quickly. “Yoongi, babe…” I held my hands out in front of me.

“Oh, you’re gone man.” Yeah, I really was. I definitely was. He smiled, his eyes flashing. “I’ll give you five seconds.” I turned around to run and tripped right onto my face. It was both a summary of my entire life and my most shining moment. “Holy shit, Jin,” Yoongi said.

I turned over onto my back, covering my eyes with my hands. “Is there blood? I don’t do blood. Once, in the third grade, I puked over this girl cause she had a nose bleed at lunch? It was disgusting, Yoongi. Don’t wanna be back there,” I rambled. 

“Let’s see,” Yoongi said slowly, and I felt him run his hands up my leg. “Nope, no blood here.” He did the other leg. “None there either.” Up my waist, down my arms. “No, no blood here.” He kissed my neck, pecked my lips. “Yep, clean bill of health.” 

“Yoongi?” I asked, taking one hand off of one eye. I squinted at him. “Doctor kink, really? It is 9 am.” 

“Yeah, come on, Bo Peep, let’s eat some bagels.” He started to get up but I grabbed his hand, pulling him towards me to kiss him. I laid back down and he came with me, cuddling into my chest. “You know, I’ve never been so comfortable with someone before,” he mumbled, flicking me.

“We’re getting too self-aware again,” I said. 

“Well, that’s bound to happen. Pretty sure we’ve both had some interesting relationships,” he replied, the air quotes around interesting heavily applied, nicely added, and completely necessary. 

“Interesting as in barista in the 7/11 parking lot or the porta potty girl at the Meatloaf concert?” 

“Would you count them as relationships?”

“Hey, Porta Potty girl and I had a very special relationship via Facebook.”

“What was her name then?”

“Portia.” 

“Doubleday?”

“No, Davis.” 

He leaned away, though his head still rested on my arm. We stared up at the sky. “I don’t usually wake up early like this, it’s nice.” 

“Please don’t tell me I helped you do that, because it’s a lot of pressure to be this great example of what to do at a stoplight. Especially when I operate in constant fear of fucking up,” I blabbered. 

He laughed. “No, no, it wasn’t you. But you do make me happier, so I guess that helps with wanting to actually wake up.” I almost laughed at that, in a sick way. Wasn’t I just thinking about sleeping for a week, maybe two weeks? Freeze me like Walt Disney’s head, wake up in a better state? I could be chill. 

“I think you were trying to change your life before you met me,” I said.

“I mean, I love my life, but yeah, the person I was…” he trailed off. “Jinyoung’s a really good friend, and he’s really great at sex… but sometimes, all the honesty, the bluntness, and anyway I’m not making sense but I was a bit of a dick to everyone, and pushed everyone out, and like, I mean, I already told you how I was never close to Tae…” 

“Being with Jinyoung gave you an excuse.” 

“Yeah. We were really comfortable being goddamn miserable.” The clouds were in the shape of an umbrella, and maybe the girl on the salt shaker? I wondered if Yoongi’s hair dye was making a pink stain on my sleeve. “And then,” Yoongi continued. “The universe was like fuck you and said oh, let’s make you fall in love with him too.” 

“Were you in love with him?” I felt Yoongi shrug. “Does it feel like you don’t know what real love is anymore, because everything’s been so fucked up and now that’s mixed up with love?” 

“What do you think love is?” Yoongi asked suddenly. It was funny, because the person Yoongi thought I was was standing in the way of him making the obvious conclusion that what I had just said was really about me. “Can I guess? Big gestures, a balcony scene, a musical number…”

“Does our story need a musical number? Because Ten could probably make it happen in ten hours.” 

He laughed and sat up, waving a hand a me. “Sorry, I did the thing. Talked about the ex. You never talk about exes, so I should quit bringing mine up.”

I watched him from where I was laying. “You don’t have to censor yourself, or feel like you can’t talk about certain things cause I’ll get weird. I try not to. Also, I’m already weird.”

“Okay, Jughead, whatever you say,” Yoongi said with a laugh. 

“Ha ha ha, very funny. Hey, what did you mean when you said that I don’t talk about my exes? We just were.” 

“Porta potty girl doesn’t count, Jin. Honestly?” he said as he turned around towards me, his knee resting on my stomach. “I feel like you’ve never been in anything near a serious relationship. 

Is that true?” 

I sat up. Our faces were very close. “You got me,” I said softly. He looked satisfied at his guessing capabilities, which I loved for him. I couldn’t wait to get him in a bowling alley, or at least down for a game of Wii sports. He was chill, but I felt like if I freaked out, I could send him down this aggressively competitive spiral. It would be neat. 

“Okay, okay, break it up. What will the neighbors think? Also, I’m stealing a bagel,” Hoseok announced as he slammed the screen door behind him. 

“You look like a goddamn mess,” Yoongi said as he looked over towards Hoseok.

“Yeah, yeah, nice to see you too,” Hoseok waved him off. Yoongi wasn’t wrong. Hoseok was a bit of a mess. But then again, it was a Saturday morning. 

“Let’s eat, I’m starving,” Yoongi said as Hoseok retreated to the darkness whence he came. 

“Always,” I replied.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi and Jin go to Jin's brother's concert, Jinyoung tries to give Jin some kind of "talk," and later, Hoseok comforts Jin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing the summary was so difficult without spoilers haha! But warning ahead this chapter is pretty sad :(

I shifted on my feet outside of Yoongi and Jinyoung’s apartment. Usually, I would just walk right in, but this wasn’t just a date, it was a date. We weren’t gonna hang out, play guitar, and chuck mini-marshmallows down each other’s throats. I felt overdressed. I felt completely undressed. I knocked. 

“Hey,” Jinyoung said, stepping aside so I could come in. 

“Sorry I knocked, but I’m pretty nervous.” I hadn’t seen my brother in years, and I had to buy the tickets for the show off of some resale site, so the nerves were mostly due to the fact that I was probably going to spend the whole night not measuring up to Yoongi’s pre-existing assumptions about me.

Jinyoung blinked. “Ummmm, don’t be worried? You’ll do fine, buddy?” It seemed like Jinyoung was one step away from patting me on the back so I moved into the kitchen. I felt like a Roomba, but the way the energy in this living room screamed Prom was really throwing me back. And by the way, parents love me, and I almost hung out with Jennifer’s mom and dad playing Scrabble instead of going to the Prom, but then again, Jinyoung wasn’t Yoongi’s overprotective family, but his ex, whom he may have unreciprocatively loved for months or years.

“So, Jinyoung, I’m thinking about getting Hoseok some coke for his birthday. How much is it running these days?” 

Jinyoung laughed. “You seriously want me to hook you up?” 

Taehyung suddenly sat up and looked over the back of the couch. “Or I could get you some mushrooms, he seems like maybe he could use something to expand his mind,” he said. He was wearing sweatpants and a white button down, little yellow ascot resting prettily on his collar. Even in such a relaxed fit he looked like he was lounging on a vintage chaise in the wings of his relatively successful off-Broadway production. 

Jinyoung snorted. “He certainly needs something to calm down.” He was probably thinking about the other night, when we’d all congregated in a way too tiny space during a downpour, and Jimin and Hoseok had fought, and me and Hoseok had fought, and Yoongi’d stormed out. It was already getting hazy. Another chapter closed in on me, and I wondered again how I was supposed to form deep relationships when each day was turning a new page, and all my past selves belonged to someone else. A lot of them belonged to him, and was it bad that sometimes, even when I was out with Yoongi, I wanted him to hold my hand, pull me by my hip towards him, reassure me that I was heading in the right direction. I wondered if Yoongi would let me follow the sound of his voice. 

“Well, Jinyoung, you’re only getting part of the story, texting and calling Ten,” I said instead of inappropriately blabbing any of the thoughts I was actually just having. I leaned back against the counter and shoved my hands in my pockets. 

Jinyoung turned towards me, an amused look on his face. I already felt guilty for calling him out like that, especially since maybe we could have some kind of cool relationship? I couldn’t help thinking about his face when he’d leaned across the table and told me not to fuck with Yoongi. “Why don’t you let me and him be the judge of that?” he raised his eyebrows good-humoredly. 

“Hey, man, you didn’t tell me that you and Ten have a thing!” Taehyung called, rolling off of the couch and sliding onto a barstool. Jinyoung’s mouth was tight. Was there a reason that he didn’t want… maybe he didn’t want Yoongi knowing? Well, that chapter was already closed, so I just shrugged into the fire. “He seemed… intense?” Taehyung furrowed his brows. 

“You’re the one in the Jersey Devil Cult,” Jinyoung turned towards him. 

“No, no!” Taehyung raised his hands in defense, though his elbows were still resting on the counter. “I mean, I like it. Besides, maybe if you were dating him, you’d be less messy and not have to buy new socks every week.” Taehyung turned towards me. “He only pretends he’s on top of things, but I know as soon as he gets hired for a permanent position at a hospital or something, everyone’s going to realize that he needs help for everything.” Taehyung nodded, and Jinyoung looped his hands under his arms to try to pull him off the stool. Taehyung, rather than protesting, let his body go slack and let Jinyoung completely pull him off the stool. He laid on the ground and closed his eyes. 

Jinyoung turned back towards me, and his face grew serious, the sparkle extinguished by a mere glance in my area. I wondered if they were to block off this small corner of the kitchen in bubble wrap, or plastic wrap, or even tin foil, would anyone remember I was here? Or would I have no choice but to become an art piece, slightly reviled, though most were patiently indifferent with the uncomfortable pose of my limbs and what I’ve thought of as an avant garde mind. But it was nothing special. I usually came to the same conclusions as most people, it just took me longer to get there. 

“You good?” I asked Jinyoung. He was close with Taehyung, and it made me wish me and Hoseok still had even half of what we had when we sixteen. It made me wish Taehyung and Yoongi knew each other. It made me wish I knew my brother beyond what the fan sites already knew, or beyond the brief scribbled message on the limited-edition trading cards that I ripped off from the Record Store around the corner from the house with the empty swimming pool where we’d lay until we were baked, waiting for night to fall. 

“I just…” he started in a low voice, glancing back towards where Taehyung was still playing asleep. He rounded the counter and stood about a foot away, leaning across from me and crossing his arms. 

“I know you think that me and Yoongi won’t work, or isn’t working now, or whatever…” 

“I think he’s falling for you. I’ve seen that look in his eyes, trust me.” I was seriously worried that Jinyoung was going to roll his eyes with that, and then this mild intimidation would have gotten a bit intense even for a Saturday night when I’d have to kick his ass. 

“I wouldn’t know if that’s true,” I said, but my pulse was in my throat, and my stomach was weighted to the bottom of my body. I’d wanted that, hadn’t I? Somebody to love, the musical number, the doves, the Saturday mornings in each other’s arms with the curtains caught in a breeze that smelled like cotton and lavender, and to wake up with my face securely in the back of his neck every day? I wanted the idea of romance, but hadn’t that ship or plane or car or whatever the fuck already passed? Hadn’t I had my chance, and fucked it up? Maybe I really was messing with Yoongi. Maybe it’d gone too far.

“I don’t really trust you, Jin, okay? Because I know I hurt him,” Jinyoung stopped before continuing. “And I know now…” he trailed off, rubbing at his eyes underneath his glasses. “Do you want to know how we met, and how our thing started?”

“Not really, no.” 

“You don’t…” 

“Want to compare notes? No, I don’t.” 

“That’s not what I wanted to…” Jinyoung ran a hand through his hair before letting out a humorless laugh. “I wanted to talk to you about it, because maybe I wanted to… because maybe I’m trying hard not to be under his feet anymore, and maybe I’m trying to be something substantial for someone else.” 

“For Ten?” I raised an eyebrow. 

“No, I don’t think so.” Jinyoung looked out the window at nothing. The sky was indigo and grey. I watched the reflection in his glasses. He looked back at me. “I thought that maybe if you really knew what went on, then maybe you could help him out of it. Because I know it’s bad, or it’ll be bad if I try to be that guy for him, even though I love him, and I want to be that guy for him,” he said softly, passionately, and I wondered, really, what I was doing here. I hated it here. “Are you going to run away again?” 

“What?” I asked. 

“Are you even listening to me? I know you’re just a goofy guy looking for some summer fun, and to repeat myself that night at your house, I need you to try to understand that this isn’t just a game.” 

“Just because I’m a ridiculous person with fantastic life stories, it doesn’t mean that any part of this is a game to me,” I said, meeting his eyes. 

“Hey!” Yoongi exclaimed as he walked into the kitchen area, almost tripping over Taehyung. “Uh, Taeh, you good?” he nudged him with the toe of his sneaker. His hair was damp from the shower. “Oh, shit, you look fantastic,” Yoongi said. “Wait, we are going to the concert, right?” 

“Yes. We’re not going to some four-star disgustingly pretentious French restaurant. We might get some Big Macs and sneak them in the venue though,” I shrugged. He was wearing dark jeans and an oversized stripped button-down. He rubbed the back of his head with a grin. 

“Okay, we better get going then. I’m gonna force you to splurge and get me a strawberry shake too,” he mumbled. 

“How sweet is your sweet tooth?” I asked. 

“Not too sweet, but this new hair makes me want strawberry shit all the time,” he joked.

“If you guys start talking about how sweet you both are, I’m gonna hurl over that sparkly Macy’s masterpiece, Jin,” Jinyoung said with a nod towards my suit. It was a shame that my generally winning personality couldn’t trick Jinyoung into only taking me at a superficial level so that we could actually have a least a nominal friendship. He could be easy-going, when he wasn’t ripping the fork out of his own ass and stabbing me with it. 

Not that he was wrong. 

Somehow, we made it out of there and down to the corner, waiting for our Uber. I nudged his shoulder with mine. “Watch that, Jin, pretty sure those are outlawed in several states.” 

I laughed. “So, I’m not gonna embarrass you with this overdone outfit, right?” Our shoulders were still pressed together. 

“First, you really aren’t over dressed, and second, having an insanely hot date in a suit is not going to embarrass me.” He paused, tilting his head. “Well, actually, that might be kinda weird to have all that attention on us. I never thought of that,” he snapped his fingers, he actually snapped and he called me the old man! I couldn’t wait to tattle on him to Jimin. “Sorry, Jin, it’s not gonna work between us. You’re too hot.” 

“Jinyoung was hot and you went out with him,” I said, because when things were going right, I liked to shove them back into the peak awkward. It kept my blood pressure raised to a level where I didn’t have to run my heater at night in the winter, or I could stay swimming in the ocean for hours at a time without coming up for air. 

“I mean, we didn’t really do a lot of date stuff. A couple of times,” he said nonchalantly. I wanted to apologize, or maybe even talk like how me and Jinyoung had just been talking? We’d gotten someplace close to real on the roof that night. “Like what you see?” he asked quietly, turning his head towards me with a straight face. 

“Can I say you look super hot even if I’m the hot one here?” 

“Nah, that’s your job. I’m here to hold your shadow. I’ll be over in the corner, until of course, you introduce me to your brother. Then no holds barred, and you’re going to have to be number two for a bit.” 

“Number two in your heart?” I asked, and he shrugged, holding back a smile, before looking away to glance up and down the street. I reached for his hand and he took it absently. I thought about instinct. I thought about how maybe we were meant to fit together? But then again, I’d been meant to fit with him, hadn’t I? Had I had the same thoughts before? I couldn’t remember that far back. Had Yoongi had the same thoughts before about Jinyoung? “Yoongi, does being with me feel… different? And I’m not talking in a sexy way.” 

“Different?” he asked, turning towards me. “You mean like in a cosmic thing? Matching auras?” he joked.

“No, I mean…” 

He flipped his hair out of his face. “You’re really insecure about that? I thought you were pretty mature about all that.” 

“It’s not that. It’s that I want to know if what I’m feeling is real,” I said softly. 

“That I don’t know. Because this feels different from when I was with Jinyoung, and I’m not you so I don’t know if how I feel is how you feel. You feel?” he gave me a sideways smile and I wanted to kiss his lopsided mouth but then the Uber pulled up to the curb. “Let’s go.” 

Yoongi didn’t say anything as we climbed up the stairs to the nosebleed section of the venue. We had to sit a couple of seats apart, because of the resell tickets. I tried to bribe the middle-aged woman with the visor and the clip-on sunglasses sitting next to me with a couple of spare French fries I’d smuggled in my jacket pockets, but she ignored my attempts at conversation with the ease of an elementary school teacher two months away from retirement. Yoongi smiled at me and waved from the other side of her, her husband, and the two Dudes currently cradling cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I rubbed the back of my neck before sitting in the plastic seat. I could feel it burn my ass. 

“At least the sun’s going down!” I shouted, squinting in the setting sun and peering around the woman, her husband, and the two Dudes currently cradling cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, trying to project my voice over to Yoongi. The people currently standing in my way of holding Min Yoongi’s hand, and maybe whispering embarrassing stories about my brother in his ear during the concert, had the nerve to shoot me a dirty look. “Hey, do you guys mind if I move down there, and you guys just shift over one?” I finally asked the group, rather than shooting pointed looks and focusing on giving perfectly polite smiles every time we made eye-contact. They barely gave me a glance but shifted down a seat anyway, and I proceeded to stick my gorgeous ass in their faces as I squeezed past. “They should count themselves lucky for such an intimate view of New Jersey’s most important asset,” I quipped as I sunk into the seat next to Yoongi. It tilted a bit and I slipped too far back, my legs bent and dangerously rising above my head. 

I felt Yoongi’s laugh through his hands as he helped me out. “I’m sure they appreciated that one,” he said through his laughter. 

“Oh, completely. I’m here to be exploited for entertainment, after all.” I could feel the other’s looks of curiosity, and I started to talk louder. “You see, it’s been a while since I came out here. Not since that date with Alanna back in 2010.”

“Yeah? Was that for a concert, or something else?” Yoongi sat back down – properly, a true gentleman – and tilted his head to look up towards the sky. I looked where he was looking, my train of thought frayed on the edges. “Jin?” he asked, resting his hand on my wrist, without looking away from where the golds and oranges and pinks from the sunset were converging around the still faint half-moon. He rubbed circles into the top of my hand. 

“It was a baseball game, I think.” I looked at him while he looked at the stars. 

“You like sports?” 

“Um, sports don’t like me. My baseball was pretty shitty, but I played anyway. You know, for the atmosphere…” I trailed off. “I guess the atmosphere, or the community?” That’s something people said, right?

His face came back to Earth, and he asked. “Did Hoseok play on the same team?” 

“Something like that. Also, I can’t dance, so don’t look forward to that,” I vowed. 

“What should I look forward to?” 

“Are you trying to seduce me again, Min Yoongi?” 

“Is it too much?” he mumbled, still rubbing circles into the top of my hand. 

“I don’t know,” I replied. Hoseok and I were on the same baseball team, and he was too. We’d snuck into multiple keggars at the college on the weekends, and when we were ten, Hoseok and I would hang out in his room almost every day after school, organizing his baseball cards. “Yoongi, sorry about these shitty seats. Apparently even pop stars can’t control the venue tycoons. It’s a ridiculous industry. Do you think I could fit in with them?”

“With your nursing program? A perfect fit.”

We hovered around the front of the stage for almost an hour after the concert was over, watching the crowds leave and the crew pack up everything. It was surprisingly crowded, but then again, I guess Daniel was a lot bigger than I would ever give him credit for; maybe I’d bust his balls about it, in one of those fun complimenting ways. If we ever had another Thanksgiving after the last fiasco with the… “Yoongi, have I told you about the 2011 deep fried turkey incident?” 

“Was Ten involved? It sounds like Ten was involved,” Yoongi said, walking away from where he was leaning on the barrier and looking up towards me, his mouth a line but his eyes twinkling in the massive yellow stage-lights the crew set up. Their shadows scurried across the stage, reminding me of the silhouette the hanging man allegedly hidden in the woods where the lion tried to frighten Dorothy but only frightened himself.

“No, but he should’ve been there,” I laughed. I thought back to tricks of light and camera and men, myths, and legends. “Yoongi, did you know that the first Tin Man had to be recast because of what the original silver paint did to his lungs?” 

“Buddy Epstein, right?” Yoongi asked. 

“Yeah,” I say, all the right sort of awe in my voice. 

“You good? You look like you just found God,” Yoongi said with a raised eyebrow. “Although, Jimin would maintain that God is in fact him.” 

“And how does that make you feel?” I asked, dusting off my chipper Anchorman personality and extending my phone towards him like a microphone. 

“Honestly, Bill-Pete-Mike-or-Dave, Jimin is old so I probably should just believe what he wants. However, I think staying true to our fledgling relationship is more important.” 

“The basis of which is –” I started. 

“Vibe checking each other constantly. He’d just go on a rampage of taking people down for… actually, on second thought I can think of several places we should bring Jimin and several people he should take down,” Yoongi mused. He slipped his phone out of his pocket and checked the time before putting it back into his jeans. 

“You said vibe checking each other… what would you do if Jimin wasn’t there to mildly insult or indulge you?” 

He looked at me for a second. “Make a fool of myself, honestly.”

“Sounds relatable, sir.” 

Yoongi good-naturedly rolled his eyes and pushed my phone mic down. “Jin, why don’t we just bail? I’m not upset or anything, just kinda cold.” He crossed his arms and glanced back at the stage. I started walking towards the stage stairs, shrugging off my jacket as I called back to Yoongi. 

“You’re right. I should’ve just… texted him, or something,” I said slowly. 

“You didn’t?” Yoongi furrowed his brows as I stood on the bottom step of the crew’s portable metal stairs. I held out my jacket towards him, wanting our fingers to touch, but also wanting never to touch anyone again. 

I shrugged. “He’s not a big phone guy. I’m not a big texting guy.” 

He tilted his head a bit. “We text all the time.” And you see, I didn’t just do that because he liked texting and so I humored him. I was texting everyone all the time – Hoseok, Ten, Jimin had a phone, and sometimes Jungkook checked his email on his iPad in between spending time on Garage Band. He still managed to jam and create, and sometimes Johnny would come over and they’d go back to 1975. I wondered again what it was like to live so many lifetimes in one. To love like so many lives, like reincarnated lives, or –

“Can I help you?” a man in a black shirt asked with Daniel’s name in white boldface in some font crossed between Georgia and Calibri. It was kinda heinous. I could do better, and I’ve seen five-year olds (or three-year olds? Children confuse me) do better than me, so all of this to say that the shirts were not worth the hundreds of thousands they’d probably made this week. 

“Hi. I’m Daniel’s brother, Seokjin. Could we go on back and see him? It’s been a while so…” 

The man blinked. “Do I know you?”

“You personally? Probably not. Unless you’ve been out to Stockton on Saturday, February 22nd, 2017 at approximately 10:32pm?” 

“Ah,” the man hesitated, glancing to Yoongi with what I hoped a mixture of fear and awe. It was probably just confusion. That was okay. “Anyway, we’ve got to be in Hershey Park by tomorrow night, so we’d really appreciate it if you went home, or went and waited in the parking lot outside of the backdoor like the other fans. Also, nothing but respect, but how’d you not get shooed out with the others?” 

“We snuck,” Yoongi said with a shrug.

“You… uh, snuck. Okay.” He blinked before turning away and heading towards his friends who were yelling at him and trying to move a giant container full of sound equipment. 

I grabbed Yoongi’s hand and we started to scurry across the stage in the dark. “Jin, what are you doing?” he whispered at me. 

“Faster, Yoongi, I know you have corgi legs but…” 

He stopped mid-stride, his mouth open. “Would you fuck off with the short jokes, man?” 

“Sorry, sorry, come on! I’m not letting him get away with this,” I tugged on his hand with a pout. He rolled his eyes but a smile creeped out anyway as we ducked backstage. I grabbed a couple of those ugly t-shirts from a pile and handed one to Yoongi, slipping the other over my own dress shirt. Yoongi pulled it on without comment. 

“What kind of relationship do you have with your brother again?” 

“Imagine you and Taehyung’s relationship. Then imagine that he was actually a semi-famous saxophone player who spent eleven months of the year on the road and had such an awful falling out with your parents that he didn’t open the birthday cards that they only sent out of some kind of misplaced obligation. And then, by association, he blamed you,” I trailed off, glancing around the corner. 

He squeezed my hand. “Yeah?” he whispered. “Okay, maybe I should stop bitching about not being close to Taehyung when he literally sleeps on my couch all the time.” 

I turned around, leaning against the wall. “Everything’s relative, Yoongi,” I replied easily, shrugging. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but damn, I wish he’d at least extend some of the celebrity perks. Yoongi untangled our hands and reached up, pushing stray hairs off of my face and framing my face with his fingers. He leaned into me and kissed me. “A sympathy kiss? That’s low,” I shook my head with a laugh. 

“Someone was coming. Haven’t you watched any movies, Jin?” he whispered. “You have to get in the mindset, the camouflage, the espionage.” 

“And the point of the disguises was then to…” I started, tugging at the front of his borrowed t-shirt. 

“Shut up,” he laughed as he shoved my hand away. 

“Come on, I think the dressing room is down this way,” I replied. The door was one among many, and we made like that Scooby-Doo bit in the opening credits for one of the thousand versions of that show (the best ever created, by the way). “Yoongi, which Scooby-Doo do you think is the best Scooby-Doo?” I asked, tilting my head as I pounded my hand against the door. A tall man in a robe answered. “Damn! They have you opening your own door! Does that mean no Fiji Water too?” I raised my eyebrows at Daniel. 

“Can I… help you?” He stuck his head a bit into the hallway, looking for his staff, I assume. 

“They wouldn’t let me back here. I know it’s been, what, five years? But seriously, Mom would… hey, are you okay? It’s me. Jin. Okay, I’m sorry, that sounded better in my head,” I blabbered. 

“You’re really freaking me out. How did you even get back here? Do you like… want an autograph?” Daniel furrowed his brows. You know, I was starting to have a bad feeling about this? Have you ever watched as your chalk sun and grass and massive Suburu-sized ants get diluted by the rain, rushing down to the asphalt, getting tangled around the sewer grate? That’s kind of what this felt like. If memories were chalk suns. 

“Hey, I’m… I’m Jonas. Jonas Joe,” Yoongi said, extending his hand. “And this is my boyfriend, Troy. Bolton.” Yoongi had the best poker face. It sometimes scared me I guess, especially when I was always basing my personality and moods and the shit I would say on what I thought other people were thinking. “We really enjoyed the show. Big fans. So, we did, in fact, sneak back here to try to meet you. Accidentally, of course,” Yoongi wiggled his eyebrows. 

“Oh, uh… then why…” Daniel Kim began, the pop star. The pop star from where, New York? San Francisco? He looked at me with wide eyes, his hands reaching into his robe probably to pull out his phone. 

“Where were you born?” I blurted. 

“I’m from Tampa.” 

“I could have told you that. Seriously, big fan. I’m a DJ. I know you did a bit of DJing too, before you really took off,” Yoongi nodded, his eyes glowing. 

“Well, I mean, at least Florida trash is basically New Jersey trash. There’s probably a gradient or an alignment chart for that,” I said. Did I say that out loud? My fingers were numb. 

“Yeah…” Daniel trailed off, starting to not so subtly close the door. Yoongi pushed his phone into his hand. 

“Could you sign this before calling security?” he asked, cocking his head. 

“Uh. Yeah.” He signed it and really threw it back at Yoongi before shutting the door. 

Yoongi sighed. “Should’ve known he was a bastard. Oh, well,” he shrugged before grabbing my hand. I mean, in Daniel… Mr. Kim?... in his defense… “We’d better get going before security comes. Time to sneak away again. It’s becoming our thing, although I do feel like I like us better in the sun,” Yoongi joked. I guess that was a joke. Nothing was super funny at that moment, but what was Yoongi supposed to do? I thought about dripping suns again, and the awkward rare family dinners, and I thought about my mom standing on her tip toes to hug Daniel. But of course, that was probably me. Was that me in his body, then? Then who was watching all of it play out?

Me? Was that me too? I watched it all play out like a movie in my head, and when the reel caught fire, and it all burned up, and goddamn Alfredo was goddamn blinded… what then? Yoongi grabbed my hand but I let his hand slip away, like I was supposed to do. Not supposed to want, or push. I blinked towards the closed door. “I think this all needs a joke, but I’m not that guy at the moment,” I said. 

“That’s okay. Let’s just go, and we can talk about it later.” 

“You look really good in my jacket, Yoongi.” 

“Jin, you’re freaking me out. Let’s go.” This time when he grabbed my hand, I held his tightly and he was pulling me this time.

“Why’s it so fucking chilly at night? It’s not the desert. Hey, is he gonna puke? Because I have bags up here,” our driver rambled. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Yoongi rumbled, unbuckling and sliding in the middle of the backseat until our thighs were pressed together. 

“I’m Kun, by the way. I can give you guys my personal, and then…” 

“Shut up, Kun,” Yoongi muttered, surprising a laugh out of me. I put my hand in front of my mouth. Yoongi gave me a crooked smile. “What can I do?” he asked softly, putting one hand flat on my stomach and the other on my shoulder. 

“Are you like this with everyone?” I asked, glancing down at his hand. He started to remove it, and I laid a hand flat on his, pressing it into the buttons on the front of my shirt. 

“Touchy? No, I’m not. But you’ve got this thing, Jin, where you make everyone around you melt, and want to…” 

“Take care of me?”

“No, I’m talking mutual care, asshole.” 

“Asshole? Damn, you and Jimin are really the best at coming at me when I’m freaking the fuck out.” 

He gave me a lopsided smile. “Is that a synonym for deescalating?” 

I grew still. “How do you know you’re making it better?” He grew serious. “If you know, you’ll let me know, right?” 

“I’ll let you know,” he nodded. I respected that he avoided the word “promise” which was often linked to the word “guarantee” as in I guarantee you that loving me will fix all of your shit. Which no matter how many times I tried to buy that sentiment from the movies, I still couldn’t completely believe. 

“Yoongi?” 

“Hmmm?”

“Do you want to come home with me? Hoseok and Ten are gone for the night, I think.” I glanced down at his lips. 

Yoongi pulled away from me. “That’s a fucking awful idea, Jin.” 

“What? I thought I was the most handsome, fun loving guy you’ve met. Also, didn’t we both acknowledge that cuddling is more intimate than sex?” 

“I just. I don’t think you’re in the right headspace,” he explained. “And,” he hesitated, glancing up towards where Kun was watching us in the rearview mirror before rolling his eyes and turning more towards me. “You talk a lot about sex, but like the relationship thing, I don’t think…”

“I’m experienced?” I caught his eyes in the shifting streetlights and even licked my lips for good measure. 

“So, now you’re trying to seduce me?” he asked, but he wasn’t being playful, and I’m not sure if it’s because we were in shadow, but he easily held my stare. 

“Is it working?” I whispered. I wasn’t trying to seduce him. I was trying to distract him. From the realness. Anything to keep him from repeating what he’d told me on the roof. Something to get him to forget everything he didn’t know, or couldn’t figure out. Everything related to the fact that my fucked-up head had completely made a brother out of nothing, or maybe out of some of my memories of Hoseok. I wasn’t sure. 

“This is a bad idea, Jin,” he said, though his words lost most of their importance as he ran his fingers over my collarbone. “I don’t want to ruin us cause I’m horny,” he said, basically into my mouth, so I didn’t quite have the chance to call him out and call myself out. Because I was the king of fuck ups. I didn’t have the chance to think about what Jinyoung had warned me about earlier that night in that moment, because I wasn’t in the habit of thinking about Jinyoung when I was being sexy (not all the time, at least), but later that night, when I could feel Yoongi dozing off, my head on his chest, I thought about what he said, and I couldn’t stop thinking. And I was the master at not thinking, you know? But I was supposed to be the guy to help him through shit, not the guy who throws my body at him to distract him. Not to mention that I just… with before, you know, with him? I was lying to everybody. I wasn’t ready for this, and Yoongi was right, and it felt good to be with Yoongi but was it Yoongi or was it just the sex? 

I sat up, pulling my legs towards me. “Yoongi?” I said, looking down at him. 

“Huh?” he sat up, wrinkling his nose. “Are you okay?” He reached towards me and I backed up quickly into the wall. He dropped his hand and swallowed. I could actually see the panic spreading in his eyes, and Yoongi never looked panicked and I wondered if this was the look he gave Jinyoung when Jinyoung told him he could never love him like he deserved. I could never love Min Yoongi like he deserved. “Jin?” he asked softly. 

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” I said, meeting his eyes because Yoongi trusted me and met my eyes. 

“I fucked it up, didn’t I,” Yoongi started wistfully. “I knew it was a bad idea, and I took advantage of you anyway. Oh my God.” His voice broke. 

“No, no, no, please don’t cry. I can’t take it when they always cry.” 

“Always? What are you…” 

“Yoongi. It was an act. All of this. I’m an actor. I was lying because I wanted to sleep with you,” I explained quietly. It made as good sense as anything. Maybe it had all started as some plot, but then I’d caught feelings? I mean in all the rom coms we’d end up together in the end: he’d be able to get over all the lies if I just showed up outside his door with a dozen red roses and a hand painted sign. 

“Jin, I can see on your face… Is it about the Daniel Kim thing? Because it’s not a big deal.” 

“You’re right. It’s not. I was only playing it up,” I explained, keeping my voice even as Yoongi’s frayed around the edges. You see, it was at this point that I realized that similar to the memories that were dripping like chalk in the rain, everything I’ve ever felt was winding up into this giant ball and it was sitting right on my chest and in my head and the only thing I wanted was for Yoongi to hold me but I was the last thing anyone needed in their life. That was just the truth. The only truth that I seemed to keep coming back to. “You said you know my tell, Yoongi. Am I lying?” 

“That’s not the…” 

“Point?” I finished. “I think that’s the only point in this relationship,” I said honestly. 

Yoongi sighed, putting his hands over his eyes. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing the whole time? I was so worried about falling in love that I never thought what falling in love with me does to people. “No, I guess you’re not lying,” he answered, taking his hands off of his eyes, though he didn’t look convinced. “But, can we maybe just talk about this tomorrow? It’s two am and-”

“I think you should leave,” I said, my face expressionless. Yoongi’s eyes dropped and his mouth drew into a fine line. 

“Okay. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave.” His face softened. “But I’m… I’m so sorry for taking advantage -” 

“It was only ever what I wanted you to think it was,” I said, shaking his head, and he stared at me a second before nodding slowly.

“Okay. Yeah. Fine.” He slid to the edge of my bed and started putting his pants on. I watched his back. I wanted to hide my face in the nape of his neck until morning, until I could be tomorrow’s Jin and maybe tomorrow’s Jin would know how to fix things, how to live this life. “You’re telling me that everything was a lie?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Everything. With some truths mixed in there. but yeah.” 

Yoongi nodded, grabbing his stuff and standing. “So, this is your way of telling me that I can’t trust you, and you’re not worth my time, or my life, or some other bullshit?” 

“No. This is my way of telling you that you’ve never known the real me, and the real me doesn’t want to be with you.” Yoongi studied my face, before biting his lip. His nose was starting to get red. He just nodded and looked away, moving towards the door, shutting it behind him. I listened for the little click as the front door shut, and I thought about his lips on my skin, and the way he never came at me for being ridiculous, and the way he hated Hoseok because Hoseok didn’t respect me. 

But I was ridiculous. I got up and slipped on some sweatpants and the sweatshirt I liked to hide inside. And when I felt the classic single tear drip down my face, I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole mess. I was really a movie. Some early 2000’s shit that you could only find on a badly burned DVD at a library book sale. I was still laughing, which was really concerning. “Jin, was that Yoongi? Did you two finally…” Hoseok asked, opening the door without knocking, of course. “Oh my God,” he said as he watched me. 

“Go ahead, Hoseok. Take photos for Facebook, if you want, to show on my birthday or whatever,” I waved my hand at him. “Or, you know what, just stand there. Because that’s what you’ve always done, stood there and watched.” 

“That’s not true, Jin. I didn’t want to just stand there and watch, and I don’t keep you around for entertainment. No matter what anyone says,” he said intensely. It was all a fever dream. Acid trip. I thought about Taehyung’s mushrooms. 

“How can I trust anything you tell me?” I asked him before starting to laugh again. What a joke coming from me. He came close and squeezed my arm, studying my face. 

“What happened with Yoongi?” I opened my mouth to answer but instead of words I started to cry and Hoseok – Hoseok of all people, who sometimes I made the mistake of forgetting that he, in his own way, loves me – pulled me over to my bed and laid down with me in his arms. 

“I fucked up, Hoseok. The whole time. Nothing but a big fuck up.” 

“I’m not sure about that,” he answered, running his hand through my hair. “I think you were crazy about each other, but it was a bad time for both of you. You were each other’s rebounds.” 

“It’s never a good time for me. It’ll never be a good time for me,” I cried. 

Hoseok put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back so he could see my face. “Jin, just because Namjoon couldn’t accept you as you are, it doesn’t mean Yoongi thinks the same way. They are different people. And you’re different now too.” 

“It feels different with Yoongi, Hoseok. I don’t feel like he’s gonna tear me apart. I feel like he’s just gonna smile, and his eyes would… would…” I paused before continuing. “I’m in love with him.” 

“Then why –”

“Because he’s wonderful. And he’s been hurt before. And he deserves someone who’s not broken, someone he can trust.” 

“You’re not broken. I’ll personally go to anyone’s house who says that and take everything out of it in the middle of the night. That, or staple all the furniture to the ceiling.” I gave him a laugh for that one, even though it wasn’t the most original. I didn’t know if Hoseok was right, or if there was a right answer. But I did know that even though I wasn’t the most noble person, and had main character syndrome, maybe breaking up with Yoongi was the most selfless thing I’d done. Unless, of course, I just wanted to be a martyr to feel pain just to feel. 

I laid my head around his neck for a few minutes, hours, days. “Hoseok,” I sniffled. “Why don’t we do this anymore?” 

“You kissed me once when we were seventeen and it confused me,” he said. 

“I what?” 

“You kissed me.” 

I blinked into his neck. I did kiss him. “I think I just wanted to be close to you, but I didn’t know how,” I tried to explain something I couldn’t really remember into his neck. 

“I know that now.” 

“Hoseok, are you about to blame your shitty character on my kiss?” 

He gave a short laugh. “No, that’s all Hoseok.”

“Ten said you’ve been crying, or smiling at your phone?” I asked. 

“My sister. You probably don’t remember I’m guessing?” I shook my head. 

“Well. She reached out this year. She was only a kid when I left. And now, my parents are sick, but I can’t do anything about it, and I can’t go to them, and I’m not even sure I want to…” he trailed off and I sat back to look into his eyes. He laughed and shook his head. “I see me when I look at you,” he said with raised eyebrows. I hated that. I hated that he told me that, because I of all people knew that there was a big difference between what someone said and what they thought they meant and what they actually meant and what they actually wanted to say. For once in my life, I didn’t have any words to fill the silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off: sorry for doing Kun dirty, but I'm a Kun stan so I like including him in whatever form lmao.  
> Second apology: Sorry for doing the thing and writing the break-up, but trust me, folks, this is definitely a love story. (Also, more Jimin scenes ahead!)


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin sees his ex again and Jimin plays Yoda. Things inevitably get worse before they get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late upload! I've been swamped with life things and school things. I hope these Jersey trash boys are a little bit of an escape :)

“You’re dripping sunscreen on my copy of… er… Health Data Management,” Ten said slowly as he flipped his magazine around to read the cover. “Also, I can’t believe you dragged me to this tourist trap.” 

“You love making fun of the tourists,” I scoffed, slathering my arms liberally in sunscreen. “Also, why are you reading that again?” I asked, though I knew the answer. It was my new pastime in the last two weeks since I’d dumped Yoongi onto the floor and swept him out of our house. You see, I’d bait other people – meaning Hoseok and Ten since I didn’t talk to anyone else – into mentioning his name, or even a situation that could kinda connect to him. Not to talk about him, no I was playing it strictly cool on that front (though I really resented that Hoseok had seen me in the aftermath. Not super cool guy. My cover was blown.). No, I liked the way that things made me think about his smile or the way his voice rumbled, tumbling out of his mouth. These thoughts were just for me, of course. 

I was a masochist, tasteful yet severe. “Earth to Seokjin! You keep internal monologuing and it’s ruining the focus of the story,” Ten snapped impatiently. 

“You are so not the main character of this story, Ten,” I snorted. 

“No, but I am one of the fan favorite side characters. No one likes protagonists, Jin,” he stated emphatically, lowering his sunglasses and peering over top of them at me. I threw myself in the beach chair beside his. 

“Anyway,” I emphasized. “You’re studying up on deliberately confusing medical statistics to impress Jinyoung?” 

“Just in case. For parties with the other hot young residents.” 

“Is Jinyoung studying up on herbal remedies and yoga positions?” 

“He doesn’t have to, smartass. He’d been taking classes for years. Which explains the toned ass,” Ten replied and I laughed. It was getting easier to laugh. I’d been pretty torn up about the whole thing, but I got over things quickly. I’ll tell you a secret: the best way to accomplish this completely effective super rapid brick wall construction around you is to disconnect yourself completely from everyone who ever tries to constructively build a healthy relationship with you. So, I didn’t answer Yoongi’s texts, and I blocked his calls. I even ignored Jimin. I was just so terrified about what he’d say about what I’d done, the passion in his voice when he asked if I was really fucking with Yoongi and how shitty that’d be. It was like when I’d crashed the car when I was fourteen, way before I had a license, and I blamed it on… well, I guess I didn’t really have anyone to blame it on, huh? Wonder how that story turned out. 

“That’s great, Ten. Seriously. I think we… well, actually, we still do kinda have a relationship? Taehyung too. I knew that all of my relationship stockpiling would come in handy,” I said absently. 

“Yeah? Jinyoung hasn’t mentioned you, not after he totally roasted your entire personality and life choices post breakup,” Ten noted, offering me half a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. 

“Come on, no crust just how you like it.” He waved the sandwich towards me. 

“Seagull’s gonna eat it,” I said, ignoring the dancing Wonder Bread in my peripheral vision, watching the ocean. 

“At least that would make one of you who eats what I make,” Ten huffed through a mouthful of peanut butter. I wasn’t entirely sure how he managed both, though we both know that Ten is the king of multitasking. 

“I eat at work!” I turned towards him, mock outraged. 

“Yeah, sure. No one believes that,” he said sing-song. “Come on, your appetite was legendary. Now I don’t get any good food,” he whined. 

“Let’s just say I’m reevaluating my entire personality and life choices.” I shrugged. “Besides, you don’t even live with us anymore…” I trailed off. “Have you talked to him?” I didn’t want to tell Ten what Hoseok had told me about his sister. He’d confided in me, though I was pretty sure that a lot of my confessions throughout the years had showed up scattered throughout Hoseok’s many fake Twitter accounts. Whatever it took to keep ‘em laughing, I guess. 

“No, not really. But I’m gonna have to come back. If I have to crash another day on my cousin’s couch…” 

“Your cousin! I kinda thought you’d be at Jinyoung’s…” I said, searching for more ways that maybe Yoongi’s name could be brought up.

Ten laughed. “What? Honestly, half of this is because I’m trying to get his dick, and the other half is because for some reason Jinyoung especially gets under Hoseok’s skin. Which is new for us. I mean, before, other partners were never something we held over each other’s heads,” he trailed off. 

“Maybe that isn’t working for you, and this is how you’re trying to tell him instead of opening some kind of conversation?” At his silence, I turned in my chair to look at him. He stared at me. 

“Okay, okay,” I giggled. “Am I not the best person to talk to about being honest?” I asked, innocently batting my eyelashes. 

“Well, yes, obviously, but also, that isn’t the problem, or wasn’t the problem, though it definitely had something to do with, like, I thought he was emotionally disloyal?” He paused, taking a bite from a pickle before gesturing with it. “But, I mean even that thought totally violates our initial agreement.” 

“Wait, did we start talking about taxes? Because my brain shuts off at that,” I interrupted. 

“No, asshole, me and Hoseok did have a conversation, and I mean, it still applies. I just fucked up so now I have to come begging, which really is shit on my pride,” he said through a mouthful of pickle. 

“Ew, Ten,” I said with a mingled mix of grimace and smile. That was actually my natural face. It worked for most everything. Whether that was reacting to sweat marks on the knees of a mom’s khakis as she handed out quarters so that the kiddos could look out of those binoculars, or trash electronic remixes (but only if they were crafted by a compact man with mint hair or pink hair with a gummy smile and mischievous eyes). 

Ten smirked at me, swallowing before sticking his tongue out at me. “I miss that asshole,” he sighed. “He never really did shit for anyone, not unless it was some kind of ego trip thing, but I mean, he always gave a really great massage even if the one I gave him made his neck cramp for the rest of the week,” he said. 

“I mean, it’s not like he didn’t fuck up too,” I replied. 

“You’re right, and don’t forget I just said I missed him because it’s probably not going to happen again. Pass me my mimosa, babe?” he asked. “But I don’t think it’s the worst thing for me to… what was it you said? Open some kind of conversation?” Does this guy ever not smirk? How come I got the permanent grimace constipated smile and he got the sly suave smirk? 

I reached over and picked up my copy of Still Alice from my bag. That was a slick move, Seokjin. Very suave way to end the conversation, even though he technically had the last word, but still picking up the book was a casual move, not too much thought. Very secret agent Jin. Very espionage, camouflage, Yoongi’s voice whispered in my ear as his hands on my waist locked me against the wall backstage. 

You know, even with his arms around me, I’d never felt trapped. 

Until I’d felt trapped. 

I looked up from where I was not reading the words on the page when a giant puppy blocked out the ocean. Big brown doe… or I guess puppy eyes… “Cicero?” I asked, amazed. “Aw, you found me,” I laughed, though it may have sounded slightly frantic because of what, or who, would follow. 

“Who the hell names their dog Cicero?” Ten asked snappily. 

“A big nerd,” I muttered, letting my book fall into the sand face down as I dug my face into the pupper’s neck. You see, this kind of spontaneous affection was my, as my ex probably repeated a thousand times looking up from the chess game he was playing with himself by the fire because he could never be bothered to teach me, his trophy wife… but anyway, it was my modus operandi: I was a big hugger. 

“Jin?” Namjoon exclaimed at the same time that his shadow fell over me. 

I looked up. “What do you lift now, Joon? You’re fucking massive.” 

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. I take some classes…” he trailed off. “So, Cicero still remembers you!” He gave me a semi-pained smile. 

“At least that makes one of you,” I quipped and Ten coughed. “Oh, you remember Ten at least, Joon?” I asked, cocking my head up at him. 

“I didn’t not remember you,” he said, his eyes confused. “I’m just gonna go. I’ve got some friends waiting up the beach,” he continued. “Come on, Cicero.” He didn’t bother saying it was nice seeing you again, which even though I didn’t want him to mention my presence at all still had me wishing that he’d been dreaming about this moment, or something. I had. He really had shown up in my dreams, but then again, maybe our entire relationship was a dream. 

“Wait, Joon, can we talk?” I asked before I realized what I was doing. Maybe I was trying to correct the overwhelming hypocrisy that I’d been slinging at Ten a couple minutes ago? Who knows. The mind works in mysterious ways, though Ten’s magazine and Jinyoung could probably explain it with a black, white, and red all over graph. I was more of a pie chart man myself. 

“Yeah. Of course,” he nodded before stepping away and facing down the beach the way where his entourage was supposedly stationed. 

I nodded at his back, feeling a bit stupid. Ten grabbed my wrist as I stood, the dog circling around me and barking. “Jin, quit being an asshole to him and grow up. You’re gonna be fucked for life if you don’t put this to bed.” 

“I’m not so sure about that. Usually when I put things in my bed it always backfires,” I answered, my heartbeat competing with the crashing waves in my ears. The ocean was murky and green-grayish, like seaweed soup with a case of seasickness eaten by Sally saving seashells by the seashore. Ten said grow the fuck up and he didn’t know how many times Namjoon’d said that to me and how much it hurt when it stopped being said in an adoring way. 

“Jin, you good?” Ten furrowed his brows at me before sipping his drink. 

“Yeah. I’ll be right back,” I said, shaking my head a bit and walking over to Namjoon. Our shadows mixed on the sand, like spilled paint the time I’d knocked over an entire container of royal purple all over him and the painting he’d been working on for a month. It’d stained the hardwood floors in our apartment too. But instead of getting pissed at me, he giggled, grabbed me and kissed me, tangling royal purple paint in my hair. “Remember when we met?” I asked him. His grandmother was living at the home. It was kinda like with Jimin. I was her favorite and Namjoon was her favorite grandson and so we both got mutually embarrassed when she started shipping us mercilessly. 

“Honestly, no,” he laughed. “I mean, I’ve always known you, I think,” he squinted at me to try to see me in the sun. His smile faded. “I’m sorry we lost our friendship.” 

“It’s whatever,” I shrugged. Was that adult behavior? I blushed. “I mean, yeah, me too,” I lied, or maybe I wasn’t lying. Everything I felt for him had become bitter, and all the shitty little things had overwhelmed all the things I really did love about him. I mean, that’d never happened with Yoongi, but maybe it really had been a good thing to break it off before everything we had became tall tales and little petty things. 

“Wait,” he stopped, and I dodged his hand coming for my arm. “How do you think we met?” He stared at me and I shook my head. He rolled his eyes. 

“I haven’t seen you for like… a year… and you’re getting pissed at me?” 

“What?” he asked, startled. 

“I’m sorry, okay?” I said suddenly. “For not telling you about the lying.” It was the last extended inning, ladies and gentlemen. Major overtime, or whatever the right terms are for baseball. Currently 9pm, 9:30pm, 10pm. My popcorn was long cold, the batteries dead in my cute flashing Phillies crown. I thought about wearing Jinyoung’s Phillies shirt and sleeping cuddled up with Yoongi. I wondered if I fixed myself if he’d ever want me. Shit, not what I should be thinking about. 

“I should be apologizing. I acted like a total dick,” Namjoon replied. 

“I mean… yeah. You were.” 

Namjoon laughed, startled. “I forgot how blunt you are.” 

“It’s kinda my thing. My new… well…” I trailed off. 

“Your what?” 

“My girlfriend,” I explained, catching his eye. “If we stuck around back there, you’d probably meet her. She just ran to one of those fancy deluxe porta potty bathroom stalls.” 

“Oh, wow, that’s great, Jin!” He slapped my arm and I flinched. “I’m actually engaged,” Namjoon continued. “Her name is Mandy.”

“Lucy’s pregnant, so that’s why she’s always running off to the bathroom,” I continued, kicking at the sand. “But I mean. I was kinda freaked out about the whole thing,” I muttered. This was not what I wanted to be saying at all. I wanted to tell him I still gardened, that I still played the guitar, that even though sometimes my head convinced me he didn’t exist, he’d given so many things to me. 

“Shit.” Namjoon stopped and turned towards me. His eyes were so serious, and it was like the beginning of our relationship when our friendship dripped over into something more, though sometimes it was hard for me to understand where one could stop and where the other began. Thus, apparently kissing Hoseok. “Should I congratulate you, or…” he trailed off. 

“No! No! I’m still excited. I think maybe it’ll help me grow the fuck up.” My mouth was a thin line as I looked at him. I couldn’t stop being a dick. It was a bit of a problem, because all I could think of was Namjoon proposing to Mandy the same way he’d proposed to me, which was preposterous, of course, even I could see that. 

“I didn’t mean it when I said that, but you just, you never addressed the thing, you know, and you didn’t even seem to want to, and like, I wasn’t sure…” 

“If I actually loved you,” I said softly. I’d been plummeting along on my vengeance, without thinking about him and his feelings. Which was the entire point that I seemed to keep forgetting.   
At least I’d kinda considered Yoongi’s feelings before blowing that shit up. 

“Yeah,” he said, looking away before starting to chase Cicero who’d presumedly started running towards Namjoon’s friends. “Wait up!” he called before turning back towards me. “Come meet my friends.” I wondered if Mandy was there. I wondered if Mandy knew about me. 

“Sure,” I said easily, even topped it all off with a smile. “I’m a total hit at parties. Do you have White Claw? I only get lit on White Claw.” Namjoon snorted and playfully shoved my shoulder. 

“Jin, this is the guy who tried to pick me up four years ago and never left, Jinyoung, and this is his roommate, Yoongi.” I continued to trek after Namjoon, meeting Jinyoung’s exquisitely pissed off face and Yoongi’s painfully neutral one. 

“Nice to meet you,” I blabbed. Better to just turn off my fine motor mind processing skills and just blurt all the shit out. I blinked. “I’ve gotta go,” I gestured vaguely and absurdly towards where we’d just come. I wondered if I asked nicely he’d escort me back. I could use some more of this healing conversation. Just my cup of tea. Me and my girlfriend and our unborn child’s cup of tea too, apparently. 

“So, Jin, what do you do?” Jinyoung leaned forward and cupped a hand around his knees. He was not amused, and I don’t blame him. He’d really been looking forward to having me as a best frenemy right when I’d broken his roommate/ex’s heart. I wondered what convoluted FX mini-series I was living in. 

“I actually work up on the pier at the amusement park, but I take night classes at Stockton to complete my engineering BA.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Jinyoung nodded. He was super scary, like backroom poker table scary. I would try to rip him off and he’d probably tear one of my toes off or some shit. It was kinda hot. 

“Woah, seriously?” Namjoon furrowed his brows at me. “But anyway, Jin really can’t stay too long his pregnant girlfriend is coming back from the bathroom as we speak.” I watched Yoongi, and he stared at me into my eyes, a half-grin on his face. I felt my own lips quiver. It was probably kinda fucked up, laughing at my ex for being so gullible and laughing at my inability to tell the truth. But I liked the way Yoongi’s mouth curved around the held-in laughter, and I guess I’d really made a big mistake, huh? Maybe the laughing wasn’t really a big deal to him. Then again, maybe it should have been. I looked away from him. 

“Namjoon, you’re so smart, but so stupid,” Jinyoung shook his head at him and then stared at me again. 

“Are you imagining me with my clothes off?” I asked, and Jinyoung spluttered, leaning back. “Got you,” I wiggled my eyebrows at Yoongi, and he covered his face as he laughed. 

“Oh,” Namjoon said quietly. “The pregnant girlfriend thing was a lie, wasn’t it?” He looked at me with those brown eyes and I really had planned for this interaction to set me free, or whatever, but it just threw me back into this Dante’s Inferno shit storm of guilt. 

“Namjoon, I really can’t control it,” I said, seriously. 

“How do I know that’s not a lie?” he asked a little too loudly. 

“I guess you can’t,” I nodded. I glanced back towards Yoongi, and I realized that maybe he hadn’t been laughing. I was so used to everyone laughing at me. “But you’re seriously getting married?” I asked. 

“Yeah,” he let out a laugh on an exhale. “I really am.” I waited for him to say that should’ve been you. You know Yoongi never even knew I was in a serious relationship before. Fuck. But then again, that was over too? Wow this whole meeting really made things worse, didn’t it?

He never said it should’ve been you, so I said it because fuck it. “It should’ve been me.” 

“Yeah, two years ago, last year, it would’ve been you,” Namjoon nodded. 

“Well, congratulations anyway,” I smiled up at him before turning to walk away, wishing for the thousandth time that I had pockets or somewhere to shove my hands and arms so they wouldn’t swing so merrily during my big emo exit. Sigh. 

“Jin?”

“Yeah?” I turned, watching Yoongi and Jinyoung in my periphery. You know, Namjoon was really ballsy for airing all of this in front of his friends/ acquaintances. He was always really blunt too. That was why the learning about the lies wrecked like it did, I think. 

“You should really fix it. Fix it and then you’ll never have to worry about it, and it won’t… hurt other people,” he blabbed. 

“I would, really, but I’m trying a new approach, and that’s called ignoring when other people tell me I’m broken.” I gave him a side salute and turned around, slipping and grazing my knee on the sand. It was still a better exit than most if I do say so myself. 

As I sat smushed on the couch with Hoseok’s legs across my lap, throwing caramel corn at a rerun of The Bachelorette, there was a knock on the door. “You gonna get that, Hobi?” I mumbled, intent on the fanfic idea for this season’s contestants that I was planning in my head. 

He groaned and lifted his legs. “There. Now you can answer it,” Hoseok answered, his face lit bluish white from his phone. 

“Thanks. You’re wonderful, Hoseok,” I said. “Who are you texting, anyway?”

“Ten. So, shut up and go away, please.” He waved a hand at me.

“Come on, let’s not lie to ourselves. We all know you only want him to come back so you have your co-director back.” 

“Ten is the best talent scout,” he whined. “I’ve been making shitty films. There’s no art anymore. Art is dead.” 

“It is not! You’ve seen Taehyung!” I missed magic Taehyung and his saxophone. There was a knock at the door again. Maybe I’d summoned him. That would be cool. I didn’t even have to burn anything to get er done. “Our visiting hours are between noon and…” I trailed off when I saw who was standing on the other side of the door. 

“Are you going to let an old man in?” Jimin said testily, crossing his arms in his patterned sweater. 

“Well, I’m not sure about that. There’s a ritual, you know. Salt over the shoulder, spin around a couple of times. Hoseok wets the bed every night thinking about demons and shit.” 

“I’m not Min Yoongi. I’m not a vampire,” Jimin scoffed before his face relaxed and we both laughed. He pulled me into a hug, holding the back of my head and I sunk into it. “I can’t carry you, so will you let me in now? I’m dying for a cup of coffee.” 

“When Jimin dies, can I have that ugly white furniture?” Hoseok screamed from the other room. 

“I let him in our place one time and he never forgets about our vintage furniture.” Jimin rolled his eyes and a few minutes later we were sitting around the kitchen table, clutching onto cups of coffee. “Place looks different without nine or so soggy men stinking up the place.”

“Yeah. It’s good for two or three people.” I surveyed the room, feeling awkward in this small talk that hadn’t been something that was usually needed between me and Jimin. 

“Is Ten back?” he asked as he sipped. 

I opened my mouth to respond but in some quirky fate thing, Hoseok’s voice magically came out instead. “We’re working on it!” he screamed again. 

Jimin blinked fast, obviously trying to drown out the memory of Hoseok’s entire person. “I haven’t seen you, Jin. Have you been at work?” Jimin could be a tasteful guy, so he didn’t mention that I had been dodging his calls. 

“I’m still off. Marley’s amazing.” 

“Yeah,” he nodded, furrowing his brows. “So, do you want to talk about Yoongi now?” 

“Right to the chase. I appreciate your energy, Jimin,” I laughed. Jimin didn’t even blink, he was that good. “How’s Jungkook?” I deflected. 

“Fucking confused where the hell you went. You were really good for him, Jin, and that was selfish of you to avoid us.” 

“Sorry,” I ducked my head and Jimin reached a hand under my chin and pushed my face up. 

“No. I shouldn’t have hounded you. That was wrong, and I guess I shouldn’t be knocking down your door to force you to talk about your breakup either,” he shrugged. 

“I guess it’s within your rights as nosy surrogate parent.” I raised my eyebrow at him. 

“Don’t be cheeky, young one! I can school you in anything, you know!” 

“Well, I can guarantee you can school me at parenting,” I giggled. “Not that we’ll ever get the chance to find out.” Jimin’s smile faded. “How’d you know we broke up?” I asked. This was getting so shitty that when I deflected, I deflected onto a previously uncomfortable topic just to get over this new uncomfortable topic. 

“I just knew.” 

“You thought it was gonna happen? I thought you were rooting for us!” I exclaimed. 

“I was, and I am.” 

“Good.” 

“But I still think you should talk about it,” Jimin raised his hands innocently. “If you want to, of course.” 

“Fine. You wanna have this heart to heart with Hoseok eavesdropping? That’s fine. He basically knows all of my insecurities now, which goddamn sucks since I know it’s only a matter of time before he uses them against me.” 

“Not true!” Hoseok yelled from the other room. 

“Shut up!” Jimin screeched back before turning back to me adjusting his face back to something angelically pretty. 

“I’ll never be as neat and put together as you, Jimin.” 

“I’m your measure for that? I keep forgetting you didn’t know me when I was young,” Jimin laughed. “I was a mess! Seriously. I was a hot mess though, so that we have that in common.” 

“Coming on to me again?” I raised an eyebrow. 

“Ew. Anyway, why don’t you think you can have the things you want? I promise you can make Yoongi happy. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.” Jinyoung had said something similar. “I talked to him last week and –”

“Woah, woah, you talked to him? The two men I was ghosting got together to talk about me? That is some parent guidance counselor conspiracy, Park Jimin.” I tried to adopt one of Yoongi’s patented neutral expressions. It probably looked ridiculous. On brand. “Did he use the L word?” I teased. 

“Yeah. He did.” 

“Oh…” I swirled the coffee around in my cup. I swallowed. “That’s as good a reason as any to stay the hell away from him. I just saw Namjoon the other day, and that’s the results of relationships with me. You’re either a total shithead like Hoseok...” 

“That wasn’t your fault, Jin!” Hoseok inserted again. 

“SHUT. UP!” Jimin yelled back, half-standing. I put a hand on his arm and led him back down to sitting again. I laughed. I was happy Hoseok had lightened the air. It made it all easier to say, though I was sure that the part of my head the people I loved loathed was already rewriting and rewiring all these memories as I spoke. I wouldn’t have a choice.

“Or Namjoon, who was so messed up by the whole thing that he thought I was lying about everything…” 

“And that was on him, too,” Jimin interrupted, outraged. 

“Okay, okay, I’m not gonna sic you on him,” I laughed. “Though Yoongi apparently has some assholes he wants you to take down, Jiminie.” 

“It would be my pleasure.” 

“Woah, scary, but good.” 

“Exactly,” Jimin nodded. “Jin, I think you have more of a say in this than you think.” 

“Yeah,” I sighed, pushing my coffee away. “I was thinking that I was just being a martyr.” 

“No, I’m not talking about that.” 

“I’m not broken, Jimin. I’m not,” I shook my head, trying to keep my voice even. 

“No, you aren’t. And you aren’t just a character in this story, Jin. You’re writing it, you’re directing it. It’s all you, okay, babe? So, make with that what you will.” 

“Okay, Yoda, that was absolutely one-hundred percent unhelpful.” I blinked at him. 

“I know you were trying to protect him from you, but he doesn’t need protection.” 

“But he does need honesty, and I can’t give that to him.” 

Jimin placed his small hands over mine. “So, your mouth’s not honest, but your heart?” Would being well-intentioned really make a healthy relationship? I didn’t want to say it to Jimin, though I think he’d understand, but I was afraid anyway. Afraid of messing things up even more, or afraid that no matter what Yoongi had said to Jimin it wouldn’t be enough, afraid to call the number in the pocket of my scrubs and remember the things my head’d been fixing for a very long time. “Your heart is your best feature, Jin.” 

“Tell that to my dick,” I raised an eyebrow and Jimin yanked his hands away and threw them up. 

“Okay, I see the serious talk is over. Do I need to threaten you about coming to see me and Jungkook more?” I shook my head and laughed. “Also, I’m starving, so maybe we could blackmail Hoseok into cooking for us.” 

“You really don’t want that, Jimin,” I said as my eyes widened in warning. 

“I heard that! I can cook just as skillfully as any of you. What do you guys want?” he shouted. I didn’t speak soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, folks! There's a small epilogue after this!! As for this chapter, sorry Jinyoung turned out to be a real bastard. Also Namjoon. He sucks. But anyway, as always drop me a comment below and let me know what you think!


	11. Epilogue

“Hey, do you mind covering Table 15?” Lucia asked. “I’ve got a killer headache.” 

“Yeah, of course,” I smiled at her over the desk as I caught the receipt as it spilled its guts out via machine. 

“Thanks,” she squeezed my arm. I headed over to Table 15. The radio played something indie. The singer was singing in cursive. Maybe I should try writing songs again. I sure as shit had enough to write about, what with the whole Namjoon on the beach thing, or less easily artistically framed, the ear-bleeding causing loudness of Ten and Hoseok ever since they’d gotten back together. Maybe I should move out. 

I paused on the barrier between the slimy looking wood floor and the carpet that eerily resembled this bowling alley that I strictly frequented only when I had a hangover. I really could move out if I wanted to. I didn’t think I was in rebound mode from Namjoon. The feeling of knowing me and Yoongi would never be a thing was something that I didn’t think I could easily get over. But that was in my head, or maybe if Jimin was right about the whole spiritual center your heart is the life of all of all our lives speech, then it was all in my heart. 

I took my order pad out of my back pocket and slipped between a couple loudly arguing on which kind of pizza was best, and another waiter. “Hey, Jin, did you manage to snag those concert tickets?” 

“Hm? Oh, sorry, not yet,” I half-smiled at him. “Hi, my name is… well, my name is Jin and I’ll be your waiter tonight,” I word vomited. Taehyung and Yoongi stared back up at me. Taehyung beamed. Yoongi didn’t move. 

“Jin! This is awesome running into you like this, seriously.” I could see Taehyung’s eyes glowing out of the corner of my eye. “We’re on our weekly brother bonding outing, and we’re heading to Yoongi’s club to see if we can force ourselves onto the stage so Yoongi can mix a little. He knows the guy and a Friday night would be sweet for him,” Taehyung continued. His mullet had grown out, the roots aesthetically nifty. Yoongi’s hair was black, and undone, and fluffy. His hands were folded neatly on the table in front of him. We stared at each other, like we had on the beach – how long ago was that? 

I didn’t look away from him. “Our soup of the day is some kind of wildly unimaginative chowder.”

“Being at the shore didn’t spice things up?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“That’s actually a wild misunderstanding non-locals fail to understand. You see, only the locals get all the seafood. The rest is imitation shipped in from landlocked fish farms in Oklahoma.” 

“What about you?” 

“Me?” I asked. It was dark in the bar, but you see, it didn’t matter whether it was some kind of midmorning sun or artificial yellow hanging over scraped up tables, I could see his eyelashes and the way the curled just slightly over his round cheeks. 

“Were you shipped here from some landlocked fish farm?”

“I’ve been here a long time. I got born and then I just couldn’t seem to leave,” I replied. “So, how about the soup?”

“I’ll have soup. He’ll have a burger. We’re gonna need a milkshake too, with two straws,” Yoongi continued and the air was still and I didn’t feel like I was going to puke. At least, I didn’t think so. My hands were shaking too badly and I couldn’t write, and so Yoongi reached up and pried the pen and paper out of my hands. “What’s your darkest secret?” he mumbled as he wrote. 

“I can’t say the alphabet backwards. My first kiss was during seven minutes to heaven when I was thirteen. I ate a spider once for five bucks,” I answered. “I’ll be back with that soup then,” I continued, grabbing the pad from Yoongi’s outstretched fingers, possibly smiling at Taehyung? I was floating, and was it awful of me that I couldn’t think of anything noble like why I was an awful idea? All I could think about was the way that I could plan all I wanted, I could play chess with Jungkook, get my own place maybe, take Jimin out to dinner and get him playfully plastered on red wine, maybe guest star in one of Ten and Hoseok’s pornos (again. Don’t ask.), I could call my parents (if they even exist), I could swim naked in the ocean, beg Marley for my job back, lay in the backyard with my head stuck in the petunias, write a thousand ballads, learn to play the saxophone (badly), watch all the movies in the world, publish all my rom com fanfics to Archive of Our Own… anyway, nothing could really matter, could it, if I was never completely sure about how much of what made me me was in my head, and how much was in my heart. 

I turned the corner and exhaled. That’s rough buddy. I lifted the pad to rip off the order, but instead of an order of soup and a burger and a shake with two straws, it said in real scraggly handwriting: “You have no idea how bad I want to fall in love with you.” I stared at it for a second, blinking fast. 

“Hey, Jin, are you…” a passing coworker started as I pushed past them, knocking into this older woman in poorly fitting khakis. 

“Asshole,” she muttered. 

Yoongi stood up behind the table when I crossed the threshold and stood there at the end of the hallway, quite the dashing cinematic hero. “Jin,” he started as I stopped at the end of their table. “I’m sorry I pushed you away.” 

“You stole my line, Yoongi. We’re gonna have to reshoot this entire scene,” I quipped. 

“I’ll shoot it as many times as it takes to get it right,” he replied, stepping out from behind the table and I reached for him as he reached for me. I dipped my head into his neck.

“Oh, fuck it,” I said into Yoongi. 

“Hm?” 

“It’s my damn movie and I say this is a wrap. Roll credits. Print.” I felt Yoongi laugh into me, and wasn’t that The Way? The Answer? No marching band or dozen red roses, no last-minute miraculous cure for something that didn’t need curing. Nothing like that. Just the human bits. Maybe some slight exaggeration. Little bit of myth making. Nothing too extreme.

Taehyung hummed beside us, and we pulled away from each other and looked at him, our shoulders still pressed together. He lowered the menu down from in front of his face. “You know, instead of a burger, I think I’ll have soup too. Sound good?” 

He looked at us curiously and I locked eyes with Yoongi again. I had to say it. Cheesy but necessary: “Sounds great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awww :') I hope everyone enjoyed this story! It was so much fun to write and I totally cried a little writing this last scene (playing Emmylou Harris's Till I Gain Control Again on repeat). 
> 
> Please, please drop a comment below, and stay tuned, I totally wrote a Hoseok spin-off short story that takes place after this!


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